Hound Point oil port won't load supertankers in early March due to maintenance -BP

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The British North Sea port of Hound Point will not load any Forties crude oil on any supertankers in early March because of maintenance work on Jetty 1, operator BP said on Tuesday.

Jetty 1, the only loading point for Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) at Hound Point, will be unavailable from March 1 to March 12, a spokeswoman for BP said.

Forties crude, together with Brent itself, Oseberg and Ekofisk, underpins the dated Brent benchmark on which most of the world's oil trade is based.

Hound Point is the only port at which Forties, which generally is shipped on VLCCs bound for either South Korea or China, will load.

A trading source said the work was the result of a defective piece of machinery on part of the jetty, but BP declined to confirm or deny this. (Reporting by Amanda Cooper; Editing by Adrian Croft)