Oil Tanker Logjam Grows To 54 Ships As Gulf Ports Remain Closed
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sep 2, 2017
On Tuesday, just as Hurricane Harvey was peaking, we reported that according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, as well as MarineTraffic real-time tracking, at least 25 tankers carrying almost 17 million barrels of imported crude oil were drifting near Texas and Louisiana ports, unable to offload because of closures from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Since then the situation has deteriorated by more than double, and as of Friday evening, Bloomberg reports that 54 tankers with capacity more than 33 million barrels either to deliver imported crude from Latin America, Europe, Caribbean, Africa and Middle East or receive U.S. supplies are drifting off U.S. Gulf Coast as several key ports remain closed while others are open with restrictions.
The historic “tanker traffic jam”, last observed nearly two years ago as traders scrambled to store crude tankers in the same region in hopes of contango, can be seen on the Marine Traffic map below, only this time it has little to do with the shape of the oil strip, and everything to do with the logistical complications following Harvey.
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