The kingdom last month loaded about 5.6 million barrels a day on to tankers, a small increase from July, vessel-tracking information compiled by Bloomberg show. Within that, an ever-smaller share went to the U.S., and cargo data show that deliveries in the week ended Aug. 28 dropped to what could be the lowest in decades. For Saudi Arabia, cutting oil shipments into the U.S. is the quickest way to telegraph to the wider market that it’s tightening supply. The U.S. government is alone among major oil-consuming nations in publishing weekly data on crude stocks and imports, which carries enormous influence among oil traders.
While it’s clear that shipments on the trade route are slumping, data from vessel tracking and cargo unloading’s often won’t tally perfectly with weekly import numbers produced by the Energy Information Administration. That’s because it’s not possible to know precisely when a cargo that gets unloaded will appear in the U.S. government data.
One of those vessels, Khuzama, discharged its cargo and idled near southern Texas until Laura blew past, eventually making its way toward Louisiana. Another, Rimthan, was scheduled to arrive at its destination on Aug. 31. It lingered briefly near South America until the storm subsided and is now entering the Gulf. Supertankers in the Gulf generally offload their cargoes on to smaller vessels for delivery to import terminals. A single supertanker, capable of hauling 2 million barrels of crude, can significantly affect imports. A full vessel could add 285,000 barrels a day to weekly import data.