West African crude imports into the US Gulf Coast are picking up this month, drawn by the narrow WTI/Brent spread and African supply glut, Platts data showed Thursday. Thirteen crude tankers, with a total of 1.83 million barrels, have landed or are due to land in the US Gulf Coast from West Africa in October, up from four vessels in September, or 556,000 barrels, according to Platts cFlow ship-tracking software. A fixture report this week showed two Suezmaxes are set to load in the USGC from West Africa in November and another with options to the USGC. The ICE front-month WTI/Brent spread has averaged minus $2.82/b so far this month, tightening from minus $3.05/b in September and minus $5.24/b in August. “Declining shale production continues to provide support to the WTI benchmark, and as such, the spread to Brent remains narrow,” said Anthony Starkey, energy analysis manager at Platts unit Bentek Energy. “It will be interesting to see how much the prolonged narrow spread contributes to imports in the coming weeks,” Starkey said. “If the world is in excess as much as remains suggested, we should see a fair amount of that roll onto our shores, especially as refinery runs pick up out of maintenance season. This has the potential to more than offset any shale production declines, keeping US inventories high.”Click here to view full article at www.platts.com