By Cassie Werber
LONDON--The amount of crude oil due to be pumped from fields in
the North Sea is set to fall nearly 15% in May compared to the
previous month, as maintenance season takes large swathes of
production out of the market.
The Oseberg field will load only two cargoes this month,
according to provisional loading programs seen by The Wall Street
Journal, compared with six last month.
"I think it's just normal field maintenance [and] I would say it
was planned. Whether or not the market knew about it until very
recently is another matter," said Steve Sawyer, an oil consultant
at FACTS Global Energy.
The total number of barrels to be loaded in May will be 24
million, down 14.9% from 28.2 million the month before.
A North Sea oil trader said that the "large maintenance" was
likely priced in, and that the Oseberg field is undergoing
maintenance between the April 25 and May 15.
The loadings of the other three grades that make up the BFOE
basket of crudes used to create the Brent benchmark were similar to
the previous month.
Loading programs are released and circulated among oil traders
and brokers, but don't give a perfect indication of oil volume
because they can be subject to change.
Brent crude is of international importance because it remains
one of the most liquid markets and influences oil prices across the
globe.
North Sea loading programs:
April 2014 May 2014
(barrels) Volume (B/D) (barrels) Volume (B/D)
Brent 3,600,000 120,000 3,600,000 116,129
Forties 11,400,000 380,000 10,200,000 329,032
Oseberg 3,000,000 100,000 1,200,000 38,710
Ekofisk 10,200,000 340,000 9,000,000 290,323
Total BFOE 28,200,000 940,000 24,000,000 774,194
Write to Cassie Werber at cassie.werber@wsj.com