Oil tanker demand is being buoyed by traders seeking to store unwanted crude, potentially bolstering hire rates that have plunged 71 percent since July.
Frontline Ltd., the largest owner of supertankers, got about 10 enquiries from oil companies seeking vessels for storage this week, Jens Martin Jensen, interim chief executive officer of the management unit, said by phone today. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, booked the carrier Leander, Paris- based shipbroker Barry Rogliano Salles said this week. Iran, the second-largest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, idled as many as 15 of its biggest ships in May to store crude. That contributed to three consecutive months of higher rental rates. "That's definitely positive for the market,'' Anders Karlsen, an Oslo-based analyst at Nordea Securities who recommends investors buy Frontline shares, said by phone. “It will have the same impact as last time; it doesn't matter if they are in Iran or wherever.” Demand for tankers as storage “encouraged bidding'' in tanker derivative contracts betting on the future cost of shipping oil, said Ben Goggin, a broker of the contracts at SSY Futures Ltd., a unit of the world's second-largest shipbroker. Oil prices have plunged 61 percent since reaching a record price of $147.27 a barrel in July as slower global economic growth sapped demand. The International Monetary Fund last week warned of the first simultaneous recession in the U.S., Japan and Europe in more than 60 years.
Read More
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment