A subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is looking into the possibility of chartering supertankers to store the company’s excess crude oil due to the slump in global demand.
News agency Reuters reported that the Abu Dhabi National Tanker Company has begun making enquiries with shipbrokers and that they may require two or three vessels. Each tanker has a capacity of two million barrels of oil.
“They are asking for extremely flexible options at the moment with an eye on possible storage options in the West or the East. They are not ready to move yet but they can move to make the booking with very little notice they want us to be ready to go,” Reuters reported a shipbroker as saying.
The unnamed source also said that ADNOC may not actually charter the vessels but it was an unusual step for the company to take.
ADNOC have agreed to reduce supplies to its customers in June to fall in line with OPEC’s agreed production cuts. The cartel wants to reduce output by 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in an attempt to raise oil prices.
The UAE pumps around 2.2 million bpd of oil, the majority of which goes to the Asian market.
