A few Mediterranean and North African crude grades that regularly feed several East Asian refiners could take the Cape of Good Hope shipping lane for delivery instead of the regular Suez Canal route, with Thai, Indonesian and South Korean refiners looking to avoid Red Sea shipping risks and safely bring CPC Blend, El Sharara, Saharan Blend and Azeri Light crude home. However, several Southeast Asian and South Korean refiners indicated that repeated attacks on ships sailing through Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint by Yemen's Houthi militants have raised alarm bells as they often buy small volumes of low sulfur crudes from Libya, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Other supply optionsApart from looking for other shipping and logistics options to bring in Mediterranean and North African crude, Thai, Indonesian, South Korean refiners indicated that they have an option to simply slash light sweet Libyan, Kazakh, Algerian and Azerbaijan crude purchases. Meanwhile, China's independent refineries seldom import Mediterranean crude, though some CPC Blend cargoes arrive via the Red Sea route. China's private refining sector imported about 1 million mt of CPC blend crude in the first 11 months of the year, mostly purchased by ChemChina and Dongming Petrochemical.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 18, 2023 07:55 UTC