Maintenance work thins Forties crude oil production in June

Summer maintenance on a major oil pipeline in the North Sea will reduce the production of Forties, one of the five crude oil grades that underpin dated Brent, to just two 600,000-barrel cargoes in June, according to various sources after the release of the loading program.

Forties is normally the largest or second-largest of the five crude grades that underpin Brent, loading as many as 15 cargoes in a month. The other four grades are Ekofisk, Oseberg, Troll and Brent itself.

INEOS, which operates the Forties system, confirmed that Hound Point would be closed for part of June

"The Forties Pipeline System will be shut down for planned maintenance from 27 May for three weeks," a spokesman said.

"Hound Point is a piece of infrastructure located on the FPS network and will be included in the schedule of planned maintenance."

Dated Brent is a price benchmark is used to price oil in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

Concerns over dwindling liquidity of the crude streams that underpin dated Brent has dogged the market for years.

Platts surprised the industry in February by announcing that it was converting Dated Brent into a delivered Rotterdam benchmark, incorporating US crude Midland WTI, from July 2022 in a bid to boost liquidity.

But the announcement met opposition from the industry and Platts scrapped the plan two weeks later.