Shell Sells Oil Cargoes, Phibro Tanker Leaves Orkney

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc sold more than 1 million barrels of crude stored off the U.K. and a vessel hired by Citigroup Inc.’s Phibro LLC left its anchorage in Scotland for the U.S. as the incentive to keep oil in tankers disappears.

A sign of increasing demand for physical.

Shell sold two 600,000-barrel cargoes of North Sea Forties crude for delivery in mid-February at Scapa Flow near Scotland’s Orkney Islands to oil trader Vitol Group, the companies said. The oil, already on board the supertanker Oliva, has been anchored off the U.K. coast since at least December, according to Bloomberg vessel tracking data.

Vitol’s back in the game again after trying to run a corner last summer, until the CFTC got wind of it.

With regulatory fervor now all but gone, Vitol will lead the way for other specs and commercials pretending to be commercials, but really speculating.

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