It had a good run, but New York Harbor’s no longer the hottest destination for incremental diesel surpluses around the globe. Case in point: An open arbitrage prompted this Chinese diesel cargo to head to New York Harbor via the Panama canal — but the ship is now redirecting to Mexico.
The change of heart for this tanker, which is said to be controlled by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, caps several weeks in which the U.S. trading hub for diesel futures brought in rare cargoes from the Middle East and Europe, boosting East Coast imports to a nearly eight-year high the last week of January.
The ship’s initial itinerary would have been very long haul, but not as long as the journey undertaken by another Chinese diesel cargo that traveled 19,000 miles — the long way — to reach New York in early December. The latest change of plans indicates that the unusual shipping opportunities, and open arbitrage, that made such strange voyages possible seems to be over for the winter.
Source: Bloomberg
