Europe & Africa Market Update 5 Dec

Bunker prices at major European and African ports have moved in mized directions, and prompt supplies are tight in the Gibraltar strait.

IMAGE: Aerial view of the Bay of Gibraltar. Getty Images

Changes on the day to 09.00 GMT today:

• VLSFO prices up in Durban ($4/mt) and Gibraltar ($2/mt), and unchanged in Rotterdam
• LSMGO prices up in Gibraltar ($6/mt), and down in Rotterdam ($14/mt)
• HSFO prices up in Rotterdam ($2/mt), unchanged in Gibraltar, and down in Durban ($5/mt)
• Rotterdam B30-VLSFO premium over VLSFO up by $3/mt to $271/mt
• Gibraltar B30-VLSFO premium over VLSFO up by $10/mt to $362/mt

The price of LSMGO has fallen steeply in Rotterdam. A lower-priced 150-500 mt stem, fixed at $628/mt, has weighed down on the benchmark.

Conversely, Gibraltar’s LSMGO price has seen a moderate gain. These opposite movements have widened Gibraltar’s price premium over Rotterdam by $20/mt in a single day.

Meanwhile, Ceuta’s LSMGO price has surged by $30/mt, with a higher-priced offer at $747/mt providing an upward push to the benchmark.

Consequently, Ceuta’s LSMGO now has a $21/mt premium over Gibraltar, compared to yesterday, when it was at a $3/mt discount.

Prompt supplies remain tight in the Gibraltar strait ports, with buyers advised to give a lead time of around a week for delivery of any fuel type, a trader told ENGINE.

Some suppliers are around 2-8 hours behind schedule in Gibraltar, while in neighbouring Algeciras, some suppliers are running between 4-12 hours late, port agent MH Bland said.

Brent

The front-month ICE Brent contract has edged $0.24/bbl higher on the day, to trade at $63.26/bbl at 09.00 GMT.

Upward pressure:

Brent has inched up by $0.38/bbl on the week, holding mostly steady as a potential stalemate in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks has fuelled fears of a supply squeeze.

“The peace plan presented to Russia and Ukraine presents the single biggest variable to the outlook for the oil market,” Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ Bank, said.

Refinery downtime in the Middle East is projected to average 880,000 b/d in the fourth quarter of 2025, up sharply from 340,000 b/d in the third, according to Kpler’s September 2025 refinery-status update.

Planned maintenance at Saudi Arabia’s SATORP and SASREF and Kuwait’s Mina Abdullah refineries is estimated to bring refinery crude runs down to around 8.6 million b/d, tightening regional product output, Kpler reported.

This crowded maintenance cycle, combined with an ongoing outage at Kuwait’s Al Zour refinery and persistent uncertainty around Nigeria’s Dangote refinery, has further compounded fears of a global supply crunch, energy market analyst Phil Flynn said.

“There’s certainly no sign of an oil surplus in the market right now!” he argued.

Downward pressure:

Market concerns that China’s oil demand could remain muted into 2026 loom large and can act as a headwind for Brent.

Tepid domestic growth, tariff tensions with the US and an accelerating shift toward electrification in transport could weigh on Chinese oil demand by mid-2026, Janet Kong, chief executive of Singaporean refiner Hengli Petrochemical International, told Bloomberg at a conference.

Trafigura’s chief economist Saad Rahim echoed the outlook in remarks to the Financial Times (FT) at the same event. “Next year we have one of the lowest growth rates in China in quite some time,” he told FT, adding that India could even outpace China in oil demand growth.

By Nachiket Tekawade and Konica Bhatt

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