Saudi crude rerouting strains tanker capacity in Gulf of Oman

For example, the Bahri-operated VLCC Gold Shine, which loaded two million barrels of Saudi crude from Ras Tanura earlier this week, was headed to Quanzhou in eastern China, Kpler and LSEG data showed. Sinochem and Fujian Refining, partially owned by Saudi Aramco, operate separate refineries near there.

Bahri, Saudi Arabia's national shipping company, did not respond to a request for comment, while Saudi Aramco declined to comment.

South Korean refiner S-Oil, majority-owned by Aramco, is sending two VLCCs to conduct STS off Vadinar on the west coast of India, said a trader who participates in the Middle East crude market. S-Oil did not respond to a request for comment.

A tanker owner who tracks activities in the Malacca Strait said there have been more crude cargo transfers off Malaysia's transshipment hub of Linggi recently.

A Singapore-based shipbroker who covers the crude tanker market said it could be cheaper for supertankers to discharge into smaller ships which then send the cargoes to North Asia than to ship oil directly on large vessels.

(Reporting by Florence Tan, Jeslyn Lerh and Siyi Liu; additional reporting by Nidhi Verma, Chen Aizhu, Nur-Azna Sanusi and Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)