Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil refiner Saudi Aramco has withdrawn a sell tender for two 180-centistoke (cst) fuel oil cargoes from its Jubail refinery.

Traders said the decision to cancel had been taken after bids had been lower than expected.

The two parcels, totalling some 187,000 metric tonnes (mt), were slated for loading in mid and late April on a free-on-board (FOB) basis from the joint-venture refinery.

The cargo for mid-April loading is to be absorbed back into Aramco's refining system, while the other parcel is likely be offered through a later tender, according to traders quoted by Reuters..

The tender was offered against a background of heavy Western inflows of fuel oil arbitrage cargoes into East Asia .

A total of around 3 million mt of fuel oil from Europe and the Americas is expected to arrive in Asia this month.

April arrivals have already been put at around 3.5 million mt, a figure that traders say could rise to as high as 4 million mt.

Much of the March and April arbitrage is of high-viscosity and high density product, a factor that threatens to create a shortage of blendstocks.

Late last year Saudi Aramco cancelled a fuel oil tender for end-December after lower than expected offers in an over-supplied market.