Singapore fuel oil stockpiles inch down to three-week low

By Jeslyn Lerh SINGAPORE, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Onshore fuel oil stockpiles at key trading and storage hub Singapore slipped to a three-week low amid declining imports, data showed on Thursday. The inventories dipped 1.5% to 19.56 million barrels (3.08 million metric tons) in the week ended July 31, down for a second week, based on Enterprise Singapore. Net fuel oil imports, calculated by subtracting total exports from total imports, fell more than 23% to about 572,000 tons in the week. Top cargo origins for imports included Oman and Brazil, excluding storage movements from Malaysia. Meanwhile, most export volumes out of Singapore were headed for China and Bangladesh. Onshore fuel oil inventories in July averaged lower at 19.4 million tons per week, compared with 20.0 million tons in June, calculations based on the data showed. Amid the drop in inventories, fuel oil benchmarks have retained support. Singapore's spot premium for 0.5% low-sulphur fuel oil reached more than a two-month high of $7.50 per ton in end-July. Week to July 31, Fuel oil (in Total Total Net metric tons) Imports Exports Imports BANGLADESH 0 20,181 -20,181 BRAZIL 104,421 0 104,421 CHINA 1 136,665 -136,664 INDIA 53,696 0 53,696 INDONESIA 29,820 6,627 23,193 JAPAN 29,613 0 29,613 KOREA 0 0 0 MALAYSIA 244,340 82,126 162,213 OMAN 160,845 0 160,845 PAKISTAN 23,439 0 23,439 SWEDEN 32,447 0 32,447 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 59,422 0 59,422 UNITED STATES 79,469 0 79,469 VIETNAM 0 296 -296 TOTAL 817,512 245,895 571,618 (Data from Enterprise Singapore) (Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Janane Venkatraman )