Shell Seeks Gasoline in Singapore as Sydney Stations Run Short

(Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc sought to buy cargoes of premium gasoline in Singapore after a refinery fault in Australia led to fuel shortages in Sydney.

Shell bid to buy 97-RON gasoline at $104.35 a barrel for early February loading from Singapore, $1.95 more than the next highest offer by Vitol Group, said three traders who witnessed the bids. No transactions were done because there were no offers through the trading system run by oil-pricing service Platts.


Shell closed its catalytic cracking unit at its 86,000 barrels-a-day Clyde refinery, near Sydney, for several months after “erratic operating behavior,” spokesman Peter Scott said by phone from Melbourne today. Clyde’s hydro-desulfurization unit, which had also been shut, restarted, he said.

The cracker is “going to be down for quite a while,” Scott said. “Essentially, when you plan this sort of maintenance it can be down for several months and that is basically what it’s going to be down for.”

Bloomberg