In the full 12 months of 2022, global crude oil loadings were up +8.5% y- o-y at 2,047.3 mln tonnes, excluding all cabotage trade, according to vessels tracking data from Refinitiv, states the Banchero Costa report. This was well above the 1,886.3 mln tonnes in Jan-Dec 2021, but slightly below the 2,110.5 mln tonnes in the same period of 2019.
Exports from Saudi Arabia are up +17.2% y-o-y to 362.8 mln t in Jan- Dec 2022, above pre-Covid levels. Seaborne shipments from other AG countries are also up by +9.8% y-o-y to 516.5 mln t in the same period, but still below pre-Covid levels.
Exports from Russia have also increased by +10.3% y-o-y to 218.5 mln tonnes, slightly below the 225.1 mln t in the same period of 2019.
From the USA, exports surged by +22.3% y-o-y to 164.3 mln t.
From West Africa, however, volumes are down -2.4% y-o-y to 170.4 mln t.
From the North Sea, exports are also down by -1.9% y-o-y to 107.4 mln tonnes in Jan-Dec 2022.
In terms of demand, seaborne imports into Mainland China declined by -3.6% y-o-y to 436.7 mln t in Jan-Dec 2022. Imports to India, on the other hand, surged by +11.7% y-o-y to 224.2 mln t in the same period.
The European Union has now once again emerged as the world’s largest seaborne importer of crude oil, after having been briefly overtaken by China in 2019-2021. In 2021, Europe performed relatively better than other regions, although this mostly reflects a bounce back from being one of the worst performing ones in 2020, the shipbroker's report says. In the full 12 months of 2022, imports into the European Union rallied further by a massive +12.3% y-o-y to 452.0 mln tonnes. About 11 percent of volumes discharged in the European Union in 2022 were carried in VLCCs, about 38 percent is carried in Suezmaxes, and about 50 percent in Aframaxes.
Top ports in the EU in 2022 were Rotterdam (97.2 mln tonnes of crude oil in 2022), Trieste (36.3 mln t), Gdansk (21.4 mln t), Wilhelmshaven (20.8 mln t), Fos (19.2 mln t), Le Havre (18.0 mln t), Cartagena (14.7 mln t), Sarroch (12.7 mln t), Augusta (11.4 mln t), Algeciras (10.1 mln t).
Seaborne imports from Russia, declined by -12.2% y-o-y in Jan-Dec 2022 to 98.8 mln tonnes, from 112.5 mln tonnes in Jan-Dec 2021, and are down by a third from the 128.5 mln t of Jan-Dec 2019. Russia remained the top supplier of seaborne oil to the EU, accounting for 21.9% of volumes in 2022, ahead of the North Sea with 17.0% and North Africa with 15.4%.
Shipments from West Africa to Europe were up by +27.5% y-o-y to 50.2 mln tonnes in Jan-Dec 2022.
Imports from the USA surged by +43.1% y-o-y to a new all time record of 51.4 mln t in Jan-Dec 2022. Direct shipments from the Arabian Gulf also rebounded sharply by +76.4% y-o-y to 34.2 mln tonnes, but were still down compared to the 39.8 mln tonnes in Jan-Dec 2019.
