Saudis Offer To Sell Oil Near Oman, A Sign They're Sailing Dark Through Hormuz

Saudi Arabia spent weeks finding ways around the Strait of Hormuz. Now it is starting to send tankers straight back through it.

According to OilPrice.com, Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings from its Ras Tanura and Juaymah terminals inside the strait last week, ending a three-week gap in activity at the ports, according to Kpler and Vortexa data cited by Reuters.

Three VLCCs -- Malaysia Prosperity, Algeria Prosperity and Singapore Prosperity -- each loaded roughly 2 million barrels between August 12 and August 16. Six more VLCCs could load Saudi crude from inside Hormuz later this month, provisional Kpler data showed.

The next round may involve Saudi Arabia’s own ships. According to Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia is offering to sell oil from off the coast of Oman, a sign that the kingdom may be following the United Arab Emirates in shuttling more barrels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Aramco is offering cargoes on a so-called ship-to-ship basis from locations including Sohar in the Gulf of Oman. The grades being marketed are Arab Medium and Arab Heavy, something that means it’s highly likely the barrels came from inside the Persian Gulf.

For now, the offers are only being made to some Chinese refiners, Bloomberg sources said. Many of the nation’s processors prefer the heavier and relatively sulfur-rich grades produced by Aramco, which are more suited to their complex refineries.

Middle Eastern producers have been pressing ahead with shuttling large volumes of crude out of the Persian Gulf, helping keep a lid on oil prices and assuaging fears of an energy-driven inflation spike. Aramco’s trading arm shuttled some supplies through Hormuz in May, but the kingdom’s ability to divert exports to its Red Sea port of Yanbu made it less reliant on the waterway.

Over the past several weeks, even those diverted Red Sea flows have come under threat after Yemen’s Houthi militants declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia.

There have been recent signs of a pickup in cargo activity from Saudi Arabia’s facilities inside the Persian Gulf. According to satellite imagery, vessels with at least 9 million barrels of transport capacity have loaded at or near the country’s giant Ras Tanura export installations over the past week.

Saudi Arabia has also amassed a large cluster of oil supertankers just outside of the gulf. Seven VLCCs operated by Saudi-based Bahri were sitting off the UAE and Oman on Tuesday, while another two were heading toward Fujairah, according to LSEG shipping data. Traders told Reuters that Aramco could use Saudi-controlled tankers for future Hormuz transits in addition to vessels operated by South Korea’s Sinokor.

That is a notable shift after Aramco halted sales from inside the strait for weeks following attacks on its tanker fleet during last month’s escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict. 

It does not mean Saudi exports are back to normal.

Aramco is still offering Arab Medium and Arab Heavy crude to Asian refiners through ship-to-ship transfers off Fujairah, allowing buyers to collect Saudi barrels without sending their own vessels through Hormuz.

Its other escape route has problems of its own. Saudi Arabia diverted exports toward Yanbu on the Red Sea earlier in the war, only to face a Houthi blockade there. Aramco has since offered crude from Egypt’s Sidi Kerir terminal, but only about 670,000 barrels per day is expected to load there for Asia this month, versus roughly 4 million bpd previously exported through Yanbu.

Longer voyages and higher freight costs have made that workaround a tough sell.