Lloyd’s List: Tanker Optimism Against the Odds

“An Interesting thing happened on the way to the tanker crisis: tanker owners are not wearing a look of animal fear that is expected of the damned. In fact, many have the benign look of a person that believes all will turn out well in the end. Mostly, it is developments in Asia that have added some heft to the wishful thinking. . . . Poten & Partners issued a report later in February that expressed similar views. The New York-based tanker broker and consultancy predicted that three of the four major tanker classes shipping crude or fuel oil — suezmax, aframax, and panamax tankers — would undergo a modest recovery this year, while VLCCs would see no recovery. But it also said that all of these vessel types would see below long-term averages over the next five years.”