Kuwait Ships Cooking Gas Out of Hormuz as Gulf Producers Go Dark
(Bloomberg) -- Kuwait has shipped a cargo of liquefied petroleum gas out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz using a tanker it controls, as more producers opt for clandestine tactics to get energy to markets.
The Gas Umm Al Rowaisat, owned by state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp.’s shipping arm, transited the strait before transferring the LPG cargo to another vessel that is currently heading for India’s Paradip port, according to traders, Kpler Ltd., and ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The tanker went dark after loading last month, reappearing near India on Sunday.
Major producers including the United Arab Emirates are increasingly switching off location transponders on tankers they control to export crude and liquefied natural gas through the strait. While shipments are well below pre-war levels, Rapidan Energy Group predicts around 2 million barrels of oil and related products are being ferried out of the Persian Gulf each day.
“With UAE-origin cargoes using this method successfully for the past few weeks, it doesn’t surprise me that others are following suit,” said Ciaran Tyler, a lead research analyst at Kpler. The UAE started using the tactic last month to ensure LPG shipments to key buyer India, Tyler said.
KPC didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kuwait also recently offered to sell its crude to refiners in Asia for the first time since the Iran war started, providing further evidence of flows getting out of the Gulf through Hormuz.
With its Automatic Identification System switched off, the Gas Umm Al Rowaisat loaded LPG on May 28 at Kuwait’s Mina Al Ahmadi refinery, according to Kpler, where KPC operates a gas processing plant. The vessel re-appeared on June 7 near Sikka along India’s northwest coast.
Gas Umm Al Rowaisat then transferred its cargo to KPC-chartered supertanker Badrinath by ship-to-ship transfer, according to traders, ship-tracking data and Kpler. The vessel is currently signaling Paradip.
India is a key buyer of LPG and relied heavily on Persian Gulf producers for the product used primarily as a cooking gas in the Asian nation. The country has been forced to hike prices twice since the war cut off supplies.
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