Page 21: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2019)

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TANKER TRENDS tations for crude oil tanker demolitions ing and selling low sulfur fuel, oil prod- Any further escalation of the situation as around half of all seaborne crude oil in 2019 from 9m to 4m DWT. uct tankers will be employed to transport in the Persian Gulf would have a severe is transported through the Strait of Hor-

In contrast to the disappointing de- the product to where it is needed. impact on the tanker shipping industry muz. molitions, ordering has picked up. New orders for the total tanker ? eet have in- creased to 13.1m DWT. Since May 6

VLCCs of 300,000 DWT or more have been ordered as well as 30 Aframaxes.

As BIMCO expects the total tanker ? eet will grow by 5% this year, the already over supplied market has no need for ex- tra ships, and further ordering will only worsen future market conditions.

With only 0.6m DWT having left the oil product ? eet, deliveries of 6.4m DWT has meant ? eet growth of 3.5% this year, with BIMCO expecting full year ? eet growth of 4.4%. Even with a demand boost to the oil product tanker shipping sector expected to come, this high ? eet growth will put pressure on earnings.

Outlook

In July OPEC+ ministers announced that they would maintain their cur- rent output restrictions, of 1.2m bar- rels per day (bpd), aiming at reducing high stocks in an oversupplied market.

The U.S. has continued to increase its crude oil production and exports, with seaborne exports reaching a new record high of 11.9m tons in June. South Korea became the largest importer of US sea- borne crude oil exports, after China all but disappeared from the market as its relationship with the US soured.

Chinese crude oil imports from the

U.S. fell by 76.2% in the ? rst six months of the year. Over the same period, total

Chinese crude oil imports are up 8.8% reaching 244.6m tons. Saudi Arabia has overtaken Russia as the largest supplier

STOCK (Purchase and Rental): of crude oil to China, the two nations s