LONDON: North Sea oil output in February is expected to fall to its lowest level since September 2014 after the two-week shutdown of the Forties pipeline in the United Kingdom.
Loadings of a dozen North Sea crude grades will average 1.829 million barrels per day (bpd) versus 1.965 million bpd in January, according to Reuters calculations based on loading programmes provided by industry sources.
The table takes into account cargo deferrals into February from January as well as those from December into January mainly due to the Forties outage.
The total February volume of 51.2 million barrels is the lowest since September 2014 at 51.1 million barrels.
Twelve cargoes were deferred from the January Forties programme bringing the February total to 18 cargoes. Fourteen cargoes were deferred from December to January.
The 450,000 bpd Forties pipeline was shut down on Dec. 11 after a crack was found, forcing major offshore platforms such as Buzzard to shut as there was no alternative outlet.
Following repairs and a gradual ramp up of flows, force majeure on loadings was lifted on Dec. 30 and normal rates were reached by Jan. 2.
Two cargoes of Brent were also deferred to February from January, bringing February to five cargoes, and one cargo of December Brent shifted to January.
The Brent benchmark is based on five North Sea crudes -Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, Brent and Troll.
Following the deferrals, the supply of these grades will be down in February at 27.6 million barrels versus 30.8 million in January. However, on a barrel-per-day basis February loadings will be slightly higher at 987,000 bpd compared with 974,000 bpd.
The table below is based on the latest known loading programmes for 12 crudes tracked by Reuters. Totals are rounded.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.