The Chinese Lunar New Year has resulted in a surge of US-sourced LPG heading towards Europe, according to analysts.
At least nine VLGCs are heading from terminals in the US Gulf to destinations on the continent or in the Mediterranean.
“Among other reasons, these cargoes gave preference to Europe instead of doing their regular deliveries to the Far East due to the upcoming Chinese New Year and therefore traditionally lower interest from Chinese buyers during this period,” said tanker tracking analysis company Kpler.
“This has therefore resulted in the largest shipments of US LPG to Europe since January 2017 and reached 461,000t last month,” it added.
VLGCs heading from the US Gulf to Europe include the 84,000-cbm BW Leo (built 2015) and BW Njord (built 2016), the 59,300-cbm Clipper Star (built 2003) and 82,000-cbm Clipper Sun (built 2008), Shandong Shipping’s 84,000-cbm Pacific Hong Kong (built 2017), Petredec’s 84,000-cbm Saltram (built 2015), JX Ocean’s 78,000-cbm Yuhsan (built 2002) and Dorian LPG’s 82,291-cbm Captain Nicholas ML (built 2008) and 84,000-cbm Continental (built 2015), according to Kpler data.
