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LONDON—The cost of shipping Middle East crude to Asia,
the world’s busiest supertanker route, may gain for a
fifth day on reduced ship supply in the Atlantic and
speculation about rising demand from companies such as
Taiwan Maritime Transport Co. (TMT).
TMT, led
by chief executive officer Nobu Su, last month said it
hired three ships and wanted more. The company hired
very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, for 90 to 120 days,
head of research T.C. Chang said from Taipei on January
25. Two calls to TMT at about 6 p.m. local time weren’t
answered.
Vessel
supply is “tight” in the
Atlantic ocean and may boost the cost of shipping crude in the
eastern hemisphere, Per Mansson, a tanker broker at Nor
Ocean Stockholm AB, said by phone Monday.
In the
spot market, Sinochem Corp., China’s biggest chemicals
trader, hired the Safwa for 116 Worldscale points,
according to a report from Athens-based Optima
Shipbrokers. That’s 2.7 percent above the London-based
Baltic Exchange’s benchmark assessment of 112.97 points
for voyages to Asia.
Worldscale points are a percentage of a nominal rate, or
flat rate, for more than 320,000 specific routes. Flat
rates for every voyage, quoted in US dollars a ton, are
revised annually by the Worldscale Association in London
to reflect changing fuel costs, port tariffs and
exchange rates.
Each
flat-rate assessment gives owners and oil companies a
starting point for negotiating hire rates without having
to calculate the value of each deal from scratch.
At
112.97 Worldscale points, owners of double-hulled VLCCs
can earn about $79,901 a day on a 39-day round-trip from
Saudi Arabia to South Korea, based on a formula by R.S.
Platou, an Oslo-based shipbroker, and Bloomberg
marine-fuel prices.
Frontline Ltd., the world’s biggest double-hull VLCC
owner, said February 14 it needs $31,400 a day to break
even on each of its supertankers.
Bookings
for VLCCs sailing from the Middle East to Asia account
for 47 percent of global demand for the carriers,
according to New York-based McQuilling Brokerage
Partners Llp. Shipments to the US and Caribbean, the
second-biggest market, account for 14 percent of demand
for supertankers.
In a
separate report datelined Singapore, Asian hiring rates
for oil-product tankers may end at least five weeks of
declines as ship supply starts to tighten on March
cargoes.
Hiring
rates for a ship that can carry 75,000 metric tons of
fuel, a large-range 2 tanker (LR2), on the Middle East
to Japan route was unchanged at Worldscale 144.17
Monday, after falling 28 percent in the past five weeks,
based on data from the London-based Baltic Exchange Ltd.
The rate on the Singapore-to-Japan route for a
medium-range tanker capable of carrying 30,000 tons
steadied at Worldscale 185.42, after losing 41 percent
in the past 10 weeks.
“Charterers started to see freight levels improve in
certain areas” last week, and if enquiry levels are
maintained, that “should lend some optimism to owners
for the coming weeks,” London-based E.A. Gibson
Shipbrokers said in its February 15 report. For LR2s,
the supply of ships in “March looks tight and rates
should firm,” the shipbroker said.
Rates
for product tankers plying Asian routes have fallen this
month to their lowest levels since November as hiring
slowed after oil companies stockpiled kerosene and other
fuels before the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Kerosene
demand turned out to be weaker as the winter in northern
Asia, except for China, was generally milder, SSY
Consultancy & Research Ltd. said in its monthly report.
Still,
the chartering of 30,000-ton tankers is showing “some
stability, particularly in North Asia,” SSY Consultancy
said in its February 18 report. “Brokers report a
relatively weak market in the Middle East, although
tonnage availability is tightening and this could have
an impact on rates in the near term,” it said.
(Bloomberg) |
