Tradewinds: China Dominates VL Market

“Chinese charterers, unsurprisingly, dominated the VLCC spot market in 2011 with Unipec and Petrochina taking the top two spots. Unipec took first place with a staggering 449 VLCC spot fixtures – almost three times the number of second placed Petrochina with 152. The only oil majors to place in the top ten were ExxonMobil, with 104 reported fixtures, and Shell, which maintained overall volumes in the low 60s. VLCC charters made up 77% of all Unipec’s 586 dirty fixtures last year and were sufficient to make it the second largest charterer. Shell, thanks to its large aframax chartering program which accounted for 70% of their 661 reported fixtures, retained first place. ‘The influence of increased Chinese activity on development of the market cannot be overstated,’ said US broker Potent & Partners. ‘Unipec has risen rapidly through the ranks over the past five years and Petrochina’s influence has similarly risen to the number 9 spot in 2011 with 244 dirty fixtures reported. VLCC fixtures accounted for 152, or 62%, of Petrochina’s reported dirty fixtures,’ it said.”