FAL Oil Company research:
Apparently they were having some problems meeting their market demands just before they got sancioned…. dunno. redirecting to Iran?
October 6, 2011 Thursday
Pakistan State Oil puts Sharjah's Fal Oil on its blacklist
BYLINE: Staff
SECTION: Asia Pacific Vol. 89 No. 197
LENGTH: 498 words
Singapore—Pakistan State Oil has blacklisted Fal Oil from any future business dealings with the company, including participation in tenders, effective October 4 as it failed to meet contractual obligations on previous tenders, a PSO official said October 5.
"Despite facilitating and giving ample opportunities…to Fal Oil to meet its contractual obligations, the supplier persistently failed to perform and breached the contractual obligations, which resulted in interruptions in the supply chain of PSO," the company said on its website.
"As a result, Fal Oil & Co is blacklisted [by] PSO for any future business," it added, without providing any time frame.
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates-based Fal Oil has been a regular participant in PSO's high sulfur fuel oil buy tenders, traders said. Fal Oil officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
According to a PSO official October 5, "the contents specified in the tender and agreement [with] Fal Oil were not met, and despite several laboratory tests conducted by PSO [on Fal Oil's] high sulphur fuel oil and low sulphur fuel oil [they] failed to match" the stated specifications.
Previously "several consignments were rejected despite the fact that they have reached the shores, and before offloading the fuel consignments they were tested and [PSO] found that the content specified in the letters of credit and in tenders were poles apart," he added.
The source said that the problems with Fal Oil began in May last year.
For PSO's HSFO buy tender for July-October delivery, Fal Oil was reported to have sold at least six cargoes, Platts data showed.
"Up until today, they [Fal Oil] have yet to deliver the July [fuel oil] cargoes," for a tender issued in April, another PSO source told Platts. In the April tender, PSO was looking to buy 23 cargoes of 65,000 mt each of HSFO for delivery over June-October and two 65,000-mt cargoes of low sulfur fuel oil.
Fal Oil was awarded six of the 23 HSFO cargoes PSO had tendered for, traders said.
"We gave them [several] opportunities to perform but they did not so we decided to disqualify them [from the tender process]," the second PSO source said, adding that the disqualification was for an indefinite period.
PSO fulfilled their requirement for these HSFO cargoes by purchasing from other suppliers who were awarded the tender. Apart from Fal Oil, PSO had awarded its April tender to Bakri International Energy and western traders Trafigura, Litasco and Gunvor.
Fal Oil also supplied HSFO cargoes to PSO over January-February, traders said. According to several traders, Fal Oil has seen its bunker fuel market share in Fujairah shrink from 70-80% late last year to 50-60% in April this year, then to 25% in June.
Over December 2010-February 2011, Fal Oil reportedly had unspecified payment issues with the Sharjah government. During that period, the company temporarily stopped trading bunker fuel in Khor Fakkan and Fujairah.—Goh Shu Hui, Norazlina Juma'at, with newsroom staff
Staff