Kuwait Petroleum Corporation Offers to Transfer Shipments from One Vessel to Another Outside the Strait of Hormuz - Sarmad

Emad Al-Kandari, Deputy Managing Director for Global Marketing Contracts at Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), said on Wednesday that the company offers buyers the option of ship-to-ship transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz to ensure safe delivery to final destinations.

Speaking at the APEC conference, Al-Kandari said, “Whenever it is safe, we will route some ships through the Strait of Hormuz and provide options for oil transfers from ship to ship outside the strait.”

Al-Kandari did not specify which petroleum products were sold as part of the ship-to-ship transfer operations.

According to Reuters, documents showed that the company recently offered naphtha on a ship-to-ship delivery basis in a few tenders in August and September.

Market sources said some of its cargoes were sold to Japan with premiums reaching $60 per ton, on a delivered basis.

Prior to the outbreak of the war between the United States and Iran, KPC typically offered naphtha on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

The company resumed offering cargoes in June for the first time since the war broke out in February.

Data from Kpler, a ship-tracking firm, showed that Kuwait exported an average of about 200,000 barrels per day of naphtha in the first two months of this year, before exports fell to zero in April. Shipments have remained at half of pre-war levels over the past two months.