No cash, no delivery: Oil tankers play waiting game

 
Tom Bawden10 April 2012

Meet Lian Xing Hu, a 230-metre oil tanker destined for Essex's bust Coryton refinery. She is currently about 30 miles off the coast from Harwich.

The vessel, which left the Russian port of Novorossiysk on January 1 and arrived in the Thames Estuary on Saturday, is now in its seventh day of anchorage as Coryton struggles to raise the cash to pay for her 60,000-tonne crude oil cargo.

On Tuesday, she was joined by Sichem Hiroshima, another tanker destined for Coryton. This 128-metre vessel is at the port of Shell Haven, on the north bank of the Thames near Thurrock in Essex.

Coryton, which supplies 600 BP and Texaco forecourts, and a fifth of the petrol used in the South-east, went into administration this week as its Swiss parent, Petroplus, filed for insolvency.

After a two-day suspension of deliveries Coryton resumed sales yesterday. However, with only a few days worth of crude left and no money to buy fresh supplies, production will cease next week unless it can satisfy its suppliers that payment can be made.

Concerns about fuel supplies have pushed the wholesale price of diesel in the UK up by 0.8p a litre and petrol by 1.2p a litre since the weekend.

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