Crude oil loadings from Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu averaged about 3.5 million barrels per day in the week beginning April 13, Kpler data showed, 17 per cent lower than the previous week, and their lowest since the second week of March.
Loadings in the week starting April 6 averaged about four million bpd to 4.2 million bpd according to Kpler and LSEG data, just below an all-time record of about 4.3 million bpd in the week of March 23.
"One possible factor behind the drop...could be the vessel mix: for the week commencing April 13 we had more Aframax and Suezmax loadings, whereas the week commencing April 6 saw a higher share of VLCCs," Kpler analyst Johannes Rauball said.
Yanbu is the only Saudi port loading crude for export to other major markets in Asia and Europe as flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain constrained.
Saudi Arabia said earlier this month that it had restored full pumping capacity on the East-West pipeline, which links Yanbu to the eastern region, to around seven million bpd, after assessing damage from attacks during the conflict.
The port has not managed yet to load in a sustained manner at its nameplate capacity of above five million bpd, shipping data showed, though it has exceeded those levels on certain days.
Aramco declined to comment.
(Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar, Nerijus Adomaitis, and Jonathan Saul Editing by Tomasz Janowski)