Aramco Trading Company, or ATC, has begun bunkering operations at Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu Industrial Port, the company said in a June 29 statement.

“ATC has commissioned a 6,000-deadweight tonnage (DWT) barge, the MT Halki, equipped with mass flow meters,” said the statement. “Its first delivery of 1,600 metric tons of very low sulfur fuel oil to MT Lake Trout complied with International Maritime Organization regulations, which mandate a maximum sulfur content of 0.5%.”

“Yanbu is strategically located southeast of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea, and we seek to provide shipowners with certainty around pricing, availability, quality and logistics to develop Yanbu’s potential as a bunkering hub in the region,” said Ibrahim Al-Buainain, CEO of ATC.

Saudi Aramco established Aramco Trading in 2010. The company trades almost 5 million b/d, with 1.8 million b/d of this sold to the Motiva refinery in the United States. Aramco Trading’s capacity is set to increase further, when the long-delayed 400,000 b/d Jizan refinery and petrochemical project on the Red Sea coast starts up, which is expected in Q3 2021.

ATC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco and serves as its commercial trading arm. It has offices in Dhahran, Singapore, Fujairah, and London.

ATC operates storage and blending facilities at Yanbu capable of supplying up to 150,000 MT of bunker supplies per month, with the potential for further upscaling, the statement said.