Huangpu, China's largest fuel oil import terminal, has been shut due to a typhoon, causing all vessels to cease operations, Chinese shipping sources said on Friday.
"The waves are very heavy. All the ships have to stop the discharge operations," one shipping source told Reuters by telephone from Huangpu.
However traders expected little impact on the fuel oil market as mid-July deliveries were already slower compared with later in the month.
Two 55,000-tonne vessels transporting high-sulphur fuel oil from Singapore were forced to halt discharge operations at the port in southern Guangdong province, the sources said. The vessels were Ban Gong Hu and Havildar Abdul Hamid, they said.
"The vessels have reached the port and they have discharged a little," one source said.
The storm hit Huangpu in the morning between five and six am local time (2100-2200 GMT), sources said.
An 80,000-tonne tanker Elli, from the Middle East, as well as a 60,000-tonne vessel Bagi from Hong Kong, were also affected, they said. Bagi had already discharged around 40,000 tonnes of fuel oil, sources said.
"They cannot do anything but to stay put in the anchorage waters," one source said.
"Probably by tonight, the typhoon winds would blow onshore," he added.
The port could re-open on Saturday or Sunday but traders said the disruption would have limited impact on prices.
"Demand is not great anyway. It is not like there are many vessels queuing up to unload. It is not like during April, when many ships sailed there," one Singapore-based trader said. "A 24-hour closure will not disrupt the market," said one Western trader.Though Huangpu's July fuel oil imports rose to 1.5 million tonnes from 1.0-1.1 million tonnes in June, they were below April's bumper imports of two million tonnes.
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