U.S. oil trader Koch and Royal Dutch Shell have booked supertankers to store millions of barrels of crude, prompted by falling demand.
U.S. crude has fallen over $90 from its July peak above $147 a barrel as the slowing economy hurts global oil demand.
Sliding demand and poor refinery profit margins have left sellers facing the choice of offering deep discounts to move barrels or risk paying for storage to sell later.
"All this oil has to go somewhere, especially if the refiners aren't running at capacity," a Singapore-based crude oil trader said.
Koch has booked Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) the Dubai Titan, with capacity to hold over two million barrels, for storage in the U.S. Gulf Coast, ship brokers said on Thursday.
Koch has already taken two other VLCCs for storage in the U.S. Gulf, they said.
The company was not immediately available to comment.
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has booked a second supertanker to be used for storage, shipbrokers said on Thursday.
Shell booked the Front Crown to load North Sea crude in the second week of December, ship brokers said. The vessel will travel east to Indonesia's Karimun Islands, where oil is often transfered from supertankers to smaller vessels for delivery.
Shell booked another supertanker last week to take two million barrels from the North Sea for storage in the U.S. Gulf.
More traders and oil firms were considering floating storage, traders and brokers said.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose more than expected last week and at 313.5 million barrels were nearly 10 million barrels above year-ago levels, U.S. government data showed on Wednesday.
Refiners worldwide have been cutting down on the volume of crude they process due to poor margins.
Higher crude prices for future delivery have encouraged Koch and Shell to store, traders said. Crude for December delivery traded at $52.78 on Thursday, but for March, the price was over $55.
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