Saudi Aramco's Luberef unit has begun its planned bitumen tanker export operations at the Saudi state-owned oil company's Red Sea terminal at Yanbu.
A 5,500t cargo has been purchased and is being loaded on board the 7,226 deadweight tonnes (dwt) Ianthe bitumen tanker
by UAE-headquartered Richmond Group and Associates. It is likely going to Durban, South Africa. This would be the first seaborne bitumen tanker shipment from Saudi Aramco's Yanbu terminal in decades.
Luberef had been planning to begin ship-to-truck bitumen exports from the 400,000 b/d Yasref refinery since late June, but logistical snags around establishing a direct connection with a Yanbu jetty and the refinery delayed the efforts.
The firm is understood to be planning to export one 5,000-6,000t cargo per month in sales to international trading and supply firms on a fob Yanbu basis.
The start of Yanbu export operations gives bitumen importers, especially in India and Africa but potentially also in the Mediterranean, another supply alternative. India has long relied on Iranian and other Mideast Gulf volumes.
South Africa has in recent years emerged as a significant bitumen importer, both into Durban and Cape Town, after all but one of the country's own bitumen-producing refineries either shut down or stopped producing the road paving oil product. At least 208,000t of bitumen has been imported by South Africa in bulk tanker cargo movements so far this year, according to preliminary data from Vortexa, with Durban accounting for at least 69pc of the total.
This is sharply up from 139,000t in the whole of last year, with some South African market participants expecting total bulk cargo imports to reach 250,000-260,000t in 2023. Much smaller scale bitumen volumes are also imported into South Africa in heated bitumen containers called bitutainers, as well as in drums.