As it is now global news, the containership “Ever Given” run aground while in northbound transit through the Suez Canal on Tuesday. The 400-meter-long vessel is stuck in a way that is blocking all traffic from that spot of the Canal, with the Egyptian authorities suspending effectively all transit in order to facilitate operations to refloat the boat. So far, the companies that have been involved cannot estimate how long this will take, with some mentioning it could last days or even weeks.
According to Reuters, about 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal daily and hundreds of ...
LR Cargo Switchovers
March 19, 2021
An interesting statistic we have been tracking for some time now is that of tanker switchovers from clean to dirty and vice versa. The one sector we see these transitions more prominently is the Aframax/LR2 and in lesser extent the Panamax/LR1. These vessels show higher flexibility to “adapt” to market conditions as opposed to the larger crude tankers such as Suezmax and VLCC, which we usually see carrying clean products only under special circumstances such as when they are newbuildings and just out of the shipyard.
The reason this statistic is important is because it affects the supply ...
Examining the VLCC Supply
March 12, 2021
We have been reading in recent news about relatively large orders for VLCC tankers have been placed, so far predominantly on South Korean shipyards. Only this week, Shell confirmed the chartering of ten VLCC newbuilds that will be equipped with dual-fuel engines and news circulated about a Greek shipowner that doubled their initial order of four VLCC to eight. In this low-freight environment, the price of newbuildings tends to be on the lower side although it also raises questions to the expectations on tanker freight in the near future. This week, we are going to look at where we are ...
A Look at Iran Sanctions Relief Scenarios
March 5, 2021
As the US presidency officially changed in January of this year, questions regarding the new administration’s approach on sanctioned nations (Iran, Venezuela) as well as the overall energy policy have been increasing in frequency. We have already seen efforts to promote a “greener” plan on energy production, steering away from fossil fuels and into heavier investing for renewable sources. At the same time, it makes sense to expect that the Biden administration could be more lenient towards sanctioned nations, potentially opening up additional pathways to diplomacy.
For this week, we are going to focus on the potential scenario of ...
