Lloyd’s List: Owners Look to December Loadings as VLCC Rates Surge Grinds to a Halt

“‘The late season spike this year has been more robust than any of the previous three years,’ said US-based Poten & Partners in a recent report. Poten said the spike was higher this year because of tonne-mile demand growth due to continued strong demand from Asian buyers, and a number of VLCCs being taken for niche cargoes in the Atlantic Basin. More VLCC cargoes are moving from West Africa to China, and more cargoes are coming out of the Caribbean and Latin America bound for Asia. The market situation now, however, is that rates have leveled off as chartering slowed during the past few days. Fortunately for owners, they managed to prevent rates from falling too heavily after the surge. Among the owners chartering out a VLCC on the route was Taiwan Maritime Transportation. It chartered out its 2010-built, 320,327 dwt C Elephant to US energy major ExxonMobil at the rate of W58. The vessel will load 270,000 tonnes of crude on December 2. Poten said that although the traditional fourth quarter rally appears to be in full swing, VLCC owners ‘should still take caution; fleet capacity issues are far from resolved’ The VLCC fleet is projected to continue rising in numbers through 2015, keeping a cap on upside rate gains for the segment, said Poten.”