COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected all global trade activities. The demand and production of goods, the local and global transportation lines, all got hindered after the lockdown norms ere enforced by various states.
Obviously this situation has ripped off the charm of shipping business too. Ship fuelling activity in Fujairah in the UAE, a bunkering and fuel storage hub in the Middle East, fell in May as declining demand was made worse by slowing global trade because of the coronavirus pandemic, four trade sources said.
Fujairah’s ship refuelling or bunkering volumes shrank to about 200,000-300,000 tons in May, down from average volumes of about 700,000-800,000 tons, said the sources with knowledge of the regional trade who declined to be identified.
“It’s all things COVID,” said one of the sources, a UAE-based marine fuels trader, pointing to lower shipping activity, and referring to COVID-19, the respiratory disease that has become a pandemic, caused by the coronavirus.
Fujairah bunker demand has been declining as the economic impacts of the pandemic caused global trade to slow. Additionally, crude oil tanker traffic in the region has dropped after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia cut supplies to prop up prices.
For June, bunkering activity was “very slow still” with only a handful of enquiries each day, said the trader.
The weak demand helped push Fujairah’s residual fuel inventories to a record high in June.
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