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US jet fuel imports hit highest rate so far in March since

February 2023

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Nigeria's Dangote refinery sent six jet fuel cargoes to

U.S.

ports in March

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US jet fuel prices likely to be hit by rising storage,

weak

demand

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US jet fuel storage demand for April five to six times

above

usual - TankTiger

By Shariq Khan

NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. jet fuel imports are

set to hit a two-year high in March after Nigeria's Dangote

refinery pushed barrels to North America, which should lower

prices of the aviation fuel in the peak summer travel season,

trade analysts and storage brokers said.

The shipments by the 650,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Dangote

refinery, Africa's largest, highlight its potential to reshape

global fuel trading dynamics by creating a new swing supplier in

the Atlantic Basin.

It has already shown

signs of success

in competing with European refiners on gasoline exports,

and the jet fuel shipments to the United States could challenge

domestic producers' economics in the largest fuel consuming

nation.

Six vessels carrying about 1.7 million barrels of jet fuel

from the Dangote refinery arrived at U.S. ports this month, data

from ship-tracking service Kpler showed. Another vessel, Hafnia

Andromeda, is set to arrive at the Everglades terminal on March

29 with a load of about 348,000 barrels of jet fuel, the data

showed.

Total U.S. jet fuel imports so far in March stood at around

226,000 barrels-per-day (bpd), the most since February 2023, the

data showed.

The Dangote refinery started production last January after

years of construction delays, and ramped up to about 85% of

capacity in early February, allowing it to sell more fuel to

international markets.

Dangote is unlikely to be a regular jet fuel supplier to the

U.S., but a maintenance-related shutdown of the Phillips 66

Bayway refinery in New Jersey helped open a rare

arbitrage opportunity for flows from Nigeria to the U.S., Sparta

Commodities analyst James Noel-Beswick said.

The window is likely to close soon or shrink significantly

due to elevated U.S. inventories of the aviation fuel,

Noel-Beswick added.

Demand to lease storage tanks for jet fuel in Houston and

New York Harbor in April is averaging around 700,000 barrels on

storage broker TankTiger's platform, five to six times the

average monthly demand, TankTiger Chief Operating Officer Steven

Barsamian said.

The surge in demand, partly due to the influx of supply from

Nigeria, is likely to lower jet fuel prices in the U.S. ahead of

peak summer travel season, Barsamian said.

Despite lower prices, air travel over the summer could be

dampened by economic headwinds from a stock market selloff and

waning consumer confidence, Sparta's Noel-Beswick said.

U.S. jet fuel stocks ended February at 45.2 million barrels,

the highest for the month since 1999, data from the U.S. Energy

Information Administration showed.

U.S. refiners' yield of jet fuel hit a record last year,

reflecting stronger demand relative to other transportation

fuels, the EIA said on Monday. The agency expects U.S. jet fuel

consumption to touch a record in 2026.