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India's Essar Oil has sold a 60,000-tonne cargo of fuel oil to oil trader and bunker supplier FAL Oil, The Economic Times reports.

The 380-centistoke (cst) parcel is scheduled for loading on August 27th to 28th from the company's Vadinar refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat, located on the west coast of India.

The cargo sale to one of Fujairah's leading bunker suppliers follows reports that Iran has reduced its fuel oil exports due to a rise in domestic demand. Approximately 50 percent of Fujairah's fuel oil is said to originate from Iran.

Market sources also claimed towards the end of July that shipments of heavy fuel would be halted from August as Iran builds stocks ahead of winter and due to a heavy fourth-quarter maintenance season. This prompted a swift reply from Seifollah Jashnsaz, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company, who last week said there would be no halt in fuel oil exports and that the country would be continuing the shipments to its trading partners as usual.

Iran has reportedly been shipping approximately 1.2 million tonnes of residual fuel monthly since April. Reports of a reduction in fuel oil exports follows an announcement by Saudi Aramco that it would not be selling any spot fuel oil cargoes due to a rise in demand from domestic utilities and new secondary refining units.

The Saudi Arabian state oil firm, which typically sells between one and two 80,000-tonne cargoes of fuel oil per month, will now absorb these parcels for use in the domestic market.

Aramco, the largest fuel oil exporter from the Middle East into East Asia, usually offers a 380-cst parcel from its joint-venture refinery in Jubail or a 180-cst cargo from its oil processing facility in Ras Tanura.

Fuel oil supplies in Asia are predicted to remain tight in the near future. Market sources expect competition for Indian fuel oil cargoes to increase as a consequence with buyers from the Middle East and Singapore in the hunt for scarce product.

The fuel oil differential to Dubai crude is currently over $22 the record low reached in June. The price settled at a discount of $8-$9 a barrel on August 7th.