Despite Blockade, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar Share Oil Tankers

Nations Don't Want to Lose Customers Over Shared Loads

Jason Ditz 

Posted onJune 30, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsQatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Despite a near-absolute embargo imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia and three other nations, the energy market hasn’t noticed even a blip related to what is seen by many as a huge diplomatic crisis, mostly because the countries are all stopped short of letting the dispute get in the way of such business.

The United Arab Emirates is still importing Qatari natural gas en masse, because losing that supply would devastate them at least as much as Qatar. New reports oninternational shipping reveal that oil tankers continue to be permitted to share loads between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar as well.

This was a concern back at the start of June, when all this started, as it was feared many of the large customers would be unable to co-load to totally fill the huge tankers that make their way around the Gulf coast. Instead, data shows that the amount of co-loading actually increased, with everyone welcoming customers to do that.

This is reflective of the ongoing bear market in crude oil, which has been driving the price down, and fear that in forcing customers to choose one supplier or the other they might be inadvertently costing themselves business at a time when none of them can really afford it.

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/06/30/despite-blockade-saudi-arabia-uae-and-qatar-share-oil-tankers/