OPEC helps savvy oil traders sell millions of barrels

By Joshua Schneyer -Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil traders are relying on an unwitting ally, OPEC, to help them quietly exit what experts say is one of their most lucrative gambits ever -- storing vast oil supplies at sea to sell later for profit.

Trading firms like Koch KCHIN.UL and Vitol have sold millions of barrels from supertankers into the United States over the past month to cash in after crude prices doubled since winter, tanker brokers told Reuters.

The oil sold ashore has gone almost unnoticed, offset by output cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that allowed traders to unload tankers without causing a tsunami of U.S. oil imports that would crash prices.

U.S. imports, including sales from the tankers, rose 3 percent to 9.3 million barrels a day last week, still below an average 9.4 million bpd this year.

OPEC and crude traders are often at odds, with OPEC blaming speculators for wild oil price swings. But the tidy sell-off of seaborne crude shows how their interests can also align, and how each side anticipates the other's moves.

With supply cuts, OPEC sought to deplete the oil stocks at sea and boost prices. Traders waited for the OPEC cuts to take effect before discharging their stashes of stored oil.

Trading firms have sold about 30 million barrels from supertankers since April, when crude stocks at sea rose to record levels above 100 million barrels, tanker brokers said. About 70 million barrels are still floating, they said.

"There's now less oil in floating storage than there was 1 to 2 months ago, due to OPEC cuts and to increased refining," one firm keeping oil at sea said, requesting anonymity.

Traders should sell another 15 percent of floating supplies by late July, based on tanker charter data obtained by Reuters.

Each supertanker cargo of 2 million barrels is enough to fuel California for a day.

The sales unwind positions held by Koch, Vitol, Shell (RDSa.L), Glencore, BP Plc (BP.L) and others who cashed in on storage in the first quarter, when premiums surged for holding oil off the market.

OPEC NOW HAS INCENTIVE TO CHEAT

Ocean storage is now less attractive after oil prices for near-term delivery rose, reducing a so-called contango. A monthly premium of $8 to hold barrels in February has narrowed to 80 cents. That's less than the $1 a month it costs to keep a barrel at sea.

"For a while there, storing oil was a license to print money," said Stephen Schork, author of the Schork Report on energy. "Now it's less profitable, so oil is being sold ashore. It's Economics 101."

By mostly complying with output cuts of 4.2 million agreed since late 2008, OPEC, which pumps a third of oil supplies, has allowed storage barrels to flow ashore even as global fuel demand fell amid a recession.