The period charter market for tankers is experiencing a quiet period after a recent chartering frenzy, though one product tanker has scored a long-term charter.
Brokers said Clearlake Shipping last week took Norden’s 50,415-dwt MR Nord Elegance (built 2020) for 30 to 36 months at $17,700 per day. The ship is fitted with scrubbers.
Charters of this length have been rare. In April, Croatia's Tankerska Plovidba reportedly fixed the non-scrubber fitted, 49,990-dwt Vukovar (built 2015) on a three-year charter with ExxonMobil at $17,000 per day.
Clearlake and ExxonMobil declined to comment on the charters. TradeWinds has approached the shipowners for comment.
In a rare piece of potential business in the crude tanker market, Petrobras is also seeking to charter a VLCC for at least two years via a tender that will close this week, brokers said.
Activity in the tanker period charter market has slowed significantly this month, with market sources observing a large gap between rate expectations of owners and charterers.
Busy April
VesselsValue recorded a total of 108 period fixtures for crude and product tankers in April, which was one of the busiest months in recent history.
Alibra Shipping director Giuseppe Rosano described the current mood as the “calm after the storm”.
“It’s going to be not as active in the next three months if nothing changes,” he said.
“In the window of opportunity, whoever took the opportunity is [on to] a good thing.”
With early signs of oil demand recovering following the relaxation of lockdown measures in some major economies, demand for floating storage — which drove up time-charter rates — appears to have peaked.
Kpler data showed nearly 144m barrels of crude were stored at sea as of Tuesday, down from a record high of 150m barrels on 28 April.
The amount of clean products in floating storage was 79.1m barrels, compared with a record of 85.3m barrels on 9 May.
“It certainly looks like the storage story is not as big as expected,” Braemar ACM separately commented in a weekly note, adding that charterers in general were reluctant to commit to long-term deals.
The brokerage has adjusted down its assessments of the one-year rate of a non-eco VLCC by $9,000 to $58,500 per day, suezmax by $500 to $37,500 per day, and aframax by $500 to $34,500 per day.
“Nothing lasts forever. What goes up must come down,” Rosano said.
