Sep 21, 2022

09/21/2022 | 05:17am EDT Message : *Required fields SINGAPORE, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Iraq's Oil Marketing Company(SOMO) sold a batch of fuel oil in recent weeks that wascontaminated by a chemical cleaning agent, five trade sourcestold Reuters on Wednesday. About 600,000 to 700,000 tonnes of high-sulphur straight-runfuel oil (HSSR) supplied to SOMO's term customers were affected,three of the sources said. The fuel oil contained chlorinated organic compounds (COC)ranging between 90 and 130 parts per million (ppm), they added. SOMO did not immediately respond to a request for comment. HSSR is typically purchased by refiners for furtherprocessing at secondary refining units to produce better qualityoil products. The maximum COC content for fuel oil feedstock at refineriesis at 5 ppm and higher levels can cause damage to processingunits, one of the sources said. This is the latest incident in a spate of contaminated fuelcases that have emerged this year. In March-April, contaminatedfuel caused ships to malfunction at the world's largestbunkering port Singapore. "The HSSR goes to (refinery) feed so there is no impact onbunkers," said another of the sources, but he added it wouldstill take time for the incident to be fully resolved. The impact on prices had been limited so far as there isplenty of supplies, the first source said. Spot fuel oil premiums have been little changed in recentweeks, despite the quality issues, as the high-sulphur fuel oil(HSFO) market remains awash with supply. (Reporting by Florence Tan and Jeslyn Lerh in Singapore;Additional reporting by Maha El Dahan in DubaiEditing by Mark Potter)