Long-haul road fuels are covering Asia, but for how long… in Oil & Companies News 24/04/2026 Transport fuel imports into Asia & Oceania from outside regions are on track to reach a dataset (10-year) high next week (27 Apr-3 May), driven by large inflows from PADD 3 and Northwest Europe. Pressured refinery runs in Asia from lower Middle East crude availability have tightened the region’s transport fuel balance on paper, but high product prices from March to early April 2026 have caused record wide East-West spreads, enough to prompt a surge of diesel and gasoline exports from the Atlantic to the Pacific basin. Imports into Asia and Oceania from outside regions have risen by 38% week-on-week to 1.3mbd in the week of 13-19Apr, and are set to rise again to 1.6mbd this week. These arrivals are helping keep prices below the highs seen in late March and early April. The support is not only coming from long-haul cargoes, as imports into Asia and Oceania from the largest short-haul suppliers (China, India, South Korea and Taiwan) have set seasonal highs in early April, driven to a large extent by India road fuel exports to the east reaching a 7-year high in late March, and South Korea transport fuel exports to other Asia & Oceania destinations staying flat throughout March. Australia is a clear example of how sharp price reactions following the Hormuz Strait disruptions have allowed seaborne supply to rebalance potential gaps. Transport fuel imports to Australia are on course to reach a seasonal high in April at 900kbd, while DCCEEW data shows diesel and gasoline stocks on the week of 7 Apr were higher than on the week of 24 Mar. For a market that is highly exposed to seaborne disruption, wide spreads have kept prompt supply stable for now. At the current lower price levels in Asia, the product supply rebalance we have observed so far looks far from sustainable, while higher clean tanker rates are making arbitrage more difficult (NWE to Singapore LR2 rates have increased by 19% between the 1st and the 15th of April). Once the current flow of long-haul cargoes starts to clear (by the second week of May), the region will have to start relying on more intra-Asia supply. However, exports from within Asia have already dropped off, with transport fuel exports from South Korea and China down to 900kbd during the week of 13th-19th of April, marking the lowest point since June 2020. While India has helped replace some of that loss until now, higher export duties have started to reduce that support (read more here). Unless the situation in the Middle East changes, higher prices in Asia will be a requirement to reopen long-haul arbitrage flows. Source: Vortexa 2026-04-24 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share