ARA oil-storage business takes a hit
07 December 2011
Although flows of oil through the big ARA ports have shown some growth, business conditions in independent storage have become more difficult, Martin Quinlan writes
WESTERN Europe’s Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) oil hub has seen a small increase in oil movements, driven particularly by the long-distance trade in refined products. Accordingly, utilisation of storage capacity at the main ARA independent terminals has been fairly strong, but fees have come under pressure from a combination of new capacity, squeezed trading margins and backwardation – futures prices lower than prompt – in oil-product prices.
Over the first nine months of 2011, compared with the same period last year, movements of crude and refined products through ARA were up by 1.2% to 178.8 million tonnes (see Table 1). The overall rise masks a significant decline in movements through Rotterdam, while Amsterdam and (particularly) Antwerp showed sharp increases.
The divergence is a consequence of different roles. While Rotterdam’s strength is in importing crude and products, and supplying refined products though the waterways to inland Europe, Amsterdam and Antwerp are...