- Six brand new VLCCs from shipyards in South Korea and China to owners and investor across the globe marks a grand beginning for 2016.
- 58 more VLCCs are scheduled for delivery for the full year where South Korean Shipyards give out their major share for the new builds.
- BIMCO expects crude oil tanker demand in 2016 to grow by 2.5-3.5% .
The six new VLCCs from shipyards in South Korea started the year 2016 to a flying start. The tankers were delivered in a strong winter market. Even though the earnings for the tankers has reduced slightly, since the turn of the year, VLCC average earnings currently sit at USD 50,000 per day, in early February.
BIMCO forecasts a fleet growth of 4.3% for the crude oil tankers in 2016, in spite of three years of low but very healthy crude oil tanker fleet growth. Buoyed by strong markets demolition activity in all crude oil tanker segments is foreseen to be fairly low.
The VLCC fleet currently consists of 654 tankers out of which 72 were built before 2000. Those 72 tankers represents 10.7% of total VLCC capacity. Average year of build for the fleet is 2006.
Peter Sand, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO says:
“The rise of crude oil transport capacity- stemming from the introduction of new modern tankers – being delivered into the active fleet is likely to result in a four-year high fleet growth rate in 2016.”
“Overall, we expect supply side growth to outstrip demand side growth in 2016, resulting in downside pressure on spot and time-charter rates for crude oil tankers”, adds Peter Sand.
Source: Bimco
