Alexander Saverys says more crude tankers will be needed to serve the world’s energy needs for most of the rest of the decade.
The chief executive of Belgian owner Euronav told analysts on a conference call that earnings are still above average and healthy, compared with the past 10 years.
“A lot of green lights when we look at the demand indicators, but some red lights as well,” he added.
“It will come as no surprise to you that the oil supply from Opec is not a positive, definitely not for the VLCCs.
“We see that the China oil imports year on year are a little bit down, but all in all, if we combine some of the positive demand signals with the very low orderbook coming on stream, we are still in a very healthy supply-demand environment.”
He then talked about a theoretical assumption made by the company, after examining how the crude tanker fleet would evolve if all ships over 25 years of age were to be scrapped.
“Basically, all the way up to 2028, if we would scrap ships that are 25 years and older, on the VLCCs, we would lose 10% of the fleet,” he said.
On the suezmax side, the company calculates that 2% or 2.5% of the fleet would be removed.
“The fleet would be in decline if all these ships were scrapped,” Saverys told the call.
He also believes “peak oil” is some years off yet.
“We still see growth in demand, and all the [oil] agencies are still forecasting some growth in demand. That means that we will need, in the tanker industry for the next five years, more tankers,” he said.
“We have seen some new orders, but again, according to this model, we would see that we are in a structural shortage of ships, which should bode well for our markets going forward in the next years.”
