Gale and swell in the Mediterranean as well as bad weather around the Turkish straits are affecting port operations and ship-to-ship transfers, leading to delays of up to five days for vessels bunkering, loading and discharging, trading and shipping sources said Friday.

With oil processing margins from Europe to Asia trending downward, market sources this week have said that some refiners may be considering run cuts, which would likely tighten middle distillate markets and support cash prices in the spot market.

Crude futures settled higher Friday, following equities gains on some renewed global demand growth optimism.

Fuel oil exports were mainly to Malaysia and China, Enterprise Singapore data showed.

"Sabine Pilots advise traffic resumed 1600/14th with restrictions of minimum wake and no vessels meeting or overtaking through the salvage area, " an update stated.

Methanol barge prices at Rotterdam have been $228/mt lower than 0.5% sulfur marine fuel barges over the past month.

"Arab Extra Light suits our units ... Arab Heavy is similar to [Iraq's] Basrah Light," a source said.

Saudi Aramco on Monday hiked official selling price differentials for a majority of its crude grades globally.

"I think we will run into challenges in terms of getting compatible fuels that we really want to burn," Mackay said.

"We are expecting a 30-40% price increase which automatically leads to a liquidity need of $2-4 billion going forward," Molfetas said.

The FSU expansion comes as demand for storing and blending LSFO rises due to IMO 2020.

"Our main strategy is adding value to every barrel of oil that we process," Hajri said.

ed Sea Bunkering will have about 25,000 mt of VLSFO cargo at any given time, Paravalou said.

"We intend to consider whether to keep the position of the seven refineries as it is, or restructure them," Kito said.

"India is one of our target markets," Ezhar said.

Dalian FTZ's two models include ex-storage by cargo and distribute by small partials as well as optimizing two types of warehouse.

The guide aims to provide an understanding of stability and compatibility of marine fuel oils, IBIA said.

"Less sulfur means more bugs," Taylor said.

Russia's plan to delay the introduction of a low sulfur cap on marine fuel used by its river fleet is not expected to impact the country's fuel oil market.

A US House of Representatives panel Tuesday considered requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to disclose details of small refineries' requests for exemption from the federal biofuel mandate.