The combined carrying capacity of oil tankers calling at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura gained 12 percent in the week ended April 13 from the prior period, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The implied capacity of vessels calling at the world’s largest crude-export complex increased to the equivalent of 8.80 million barrels a day, compared with 7.85 million barrels for the week ended April 6, according to signals gathered by IHS Fairplay, a Redhill, England-based maritime research company. The data may be incomplete because not all shipping transmissions are captured.
The Ras Tanura complex, including Ras al-Ju’aymah, is the biggest global crude terminal, according to the website of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco. Tankers hauling crude from the Persian Gulf may call at other loading ports before or after Ras Tanura, indicating they might have collected partial cargoes elsewhere.
The table below lists the destination countries of tankers calling at Ras Tanura in the latest week as of about 2 p.m. London time today. The percentages represent the share of the total number of ships loading at the terminal that each country is due to receive. Very large crude carriers are assumed to carry 2 million barrels apiece, twice as much as Suezmax tankers. The tally excludes vessels smaller than Aframaxes, which each hold about 650,000 barrels.