Singapore bunker prices were steady on Wednesday as spot fuel oil cargo levels fell marginally.
Dealers said 380-centistoke bunker fuel oil was pegged at $190-$193 a tonne, unchanged from Tuesday, while 180-cst prices were pegged at $196-$198, traders said.
"There wasn't much enquiries in the market today unlike the previous day and most bunker suppliers are unwilling to lower their prices, preferring to adopt a wait-and-see attitude and keeping their levels stable," a Singapore-based trader said.
Bunker prices across most of Asia - in South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Bangkok - rose over the past week, largely on firmer crude and fuel oil cargo values. However, South Korean bunker prices, which rose about $1 a tonne over the previous week, was expected to come under pressure from surplus supplies following a fire at SK Corp's desulphurisation unit.
The unit will be shut down for about 10 days and the refiner is expected to have excess high-sulphur fuel oil cargoes, which will be placed into the domestic bunker market.
Traders estimated that SK, the country's largest refiner, would place another 200,000 to 300,000 barrels of high sulphur fuel oil into the bunker market for the rest of the month.
"It's not a terribly big volume to add to the market as the surplus would stand at about 5,000 to 10,000 barrels a day - if they do it on a pro-rated basis," a trader in Seoul said.
"However, there could well be some impact on prices if a large amount is dumped into the market in a short time. That remains to be seen."
The impact could be felt in competing markets such as Hong Kong if South Korean prices fell at least $10 a tonne below Hong Kong levels.
"Naturally, shipowners will go where the most competitive prices are, given the short distance between the three ports. It remains to be seen how SK will sell their surplus supplies - whether they will dump the market or sell on a pro-rated basis daily," a bunker supplier in Hong Kong said.