US base oils and lube stocks fell to a five-month low in March ahead of a heavy round of plant-maintenance work at the start of the second quarter of the year.Outright US base oils prices mostly held steady so far in the second quarter of the year despite the lower stocks, plant-maintenance work and seasonal pick-up in demand.Steady prices suggested that domestic demand fundamentals remained weak, balancing out the impact of tighter supply.Demand faced additional pressure from concern about the impact of US tariffs on finished lube consumption.US base oils and lube stocks fell to 11.64 million barrels (1.64 million tonnes) in March, government data showed.The volume fell from 11.79 million barrels the previous month and from a twenty-one-month high of more than 12.70 million barrels in January.Stocks fell even as US base oils supply bounced back to 6.16 million barrels in March, from a four-year low of less than 4.80 million barrels in February.Supply fell in February because of a simultaneous slump in domestic base oils output and imports.Output and imports then recovered to more typical levels in March.Total demand of 6.32 million barrels in March still outpaced supply, extending a typical trend in the month of March for a fifth straight year..But the supply shortfall of close to 150,000 barrels was smaller than volumes of more than 500,000 barrels in the month of March during each of the previous four years.The smaller shortfall reflected the ongoing weakness of domestic demand and the need for US base oils exports to remain at unusually high levels in response.Total exports held at more than 4 million barrels in March for a second month and accounted for more than 60% of total demand for an eighth month.Exports exceeded that share of demand just three times in all of 2023 and once in 2022. They never exceeded that share before 2022.The need to sustain high exports kept pressure on US base oils prices to remain at competitive levels to sustain large flows to outlets like Mexico, West Africa and India, as well as steady shipments to South America and Europe.The need for prices to hold at competitive levels curbed the room for suppliers to raise prices even when availability was tighter..US' March base oils exports stay high.US’ March base oils imports rise
