Lloyd’s List: Peak Oil Theorists Point Towards An Upturn For Tanker Owners

“Poten’s Marine Projects department, in a recent weekly tanker opinion, noted a stiffening in the term charter portion of the charter market. It writes: ‘Assessments for three- and five-year term charter deals on very large crude carriers began a gradual improvement at the beginning of the year.’ The group also highlighted an increase over the past three months in the number of term charters of one year or more. ‘Within the recent uptick in activity, there have been long-term charters reported at rates almost 20% higher than the last reported similar deal,’ Poten reports. The charterers behind such deals — big oil companies presumably with armies of analysts — are taking a view, implicitly, that there will be plenty of need to move crude oil in the coming years.”