Middle East fuel oil bunker premiums at the UEA's port of Fujairah remained at around $15 to $20 a tonne this week, even with fresh imports from India and Saudi Arabia, traders said.

Fuel oil supply tightened early into the start of the second-half of the year after Iran started to cap their exports due to higher domestic demand.

'There hasn't been much change to the premiums for bunkers, and as long as supplies are tight I would be expecting it to stay at these levels now,' a fuel oil trader said.

'There has been very little relief even with cargoes from Saudi Arabia and India...it hasn't been enough to meet with the robust demand seen at this port.'

Saudi Aramco, has already sold four parcels of cracked 380-centistoke fuel oil over the past four weeks. The state oil firm has been offering these barrels via private negotiations due to problems at a new gasoline unit belonging to PetroRabigh.

The $10.3 billion plant is a joint-venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical. The intergrated facility can produce up to 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of high-octane gasoline that will be converted from fuel oil.

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) sold close to a 100,000 tonnes of November loading full-range naphtha this week due to extended delays at its aromatics plant.

Kuwait has sold nearly 1.5 million tonnes of spot full-range naphtha a year.

But traders continue to mull the impact of their spot sales in addition to fresh supply coming from Qatar, particularly as three producers in Japan have cut runs because of maintenance at their downstream petrochemical units.-Reuters