LONDON, Oct 29: Opec oil to be shipped in the four weeks to November 12 leapt 670,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is on course to hit a record next month ahead of peaking winter demand, a shipping analyst said on Friday.

Roy Mason of oil consultancy Oil Movements said total spot and term Opec shipments, including Iraq, jumped to 25.13 million bpd versus 24.46 million bpd to October 15.

He said the majority of that increase was on short-haul voyages to Asia, with only a fraction of the incremental supply heading to western refiners.

Shipments to Asia rose 540,000 bpd but only 60,000 bpd more went to western refiners in the four weeks.

Mason told Reuters he expected total Opec 11 loadings to hit a record in late November, early December, on peaking demand for fuels ahead of the northern hemisphere winter.

Opec shipments, or loadings, are forecast to surge to over a million bpd over last year’s total Opec export figure by mid-November on higher Opec production relative to last year.

He said seaborne exports, though projected to hit a record, would be smaller than expected because of hurricane damage and interruption to crude deliveries into the US Gulf.

Provisional estimates for the first half of November put Opec sailings at a record high and are likely to go higher before the end of the year, Mason said in a report.

However, oil in transit, crude oil actually en route to consumers, will be some 40 million barrels short of last year’s winter peak as the export increase will all be short-haul as opposed to long-haul to the United States.

It takes an average of 20 days for crude oil shipments to reach Japan from the Gulf, but some 40 days to arrive in the US Gulf.

That, he said, was one of the principal reasons why crude freight rates were heavily lagging last year’s record highs and would stay capped through the winter months.

Oil in transit marks the real distinction between the two years. It was a 60 million barrel climb in Middle East oil in transit that pushed VLCC rates over the Worldscale 300 mark last year, Mason said.

Westbound Gulf sailings have turned down at a critical point in the seasonal cycle. In volume, the westbound decline has been more than matched by an increase in eastbound sailings, he said.

He said the impact on oil in transit of extra eastbound flows was much more limited with an incremental westbound barrel now worth more than two eastbound barrels because of shorter trips to India and China.

—Reuters