Clean tanker market in the Atlantic Basin have found significant support in the past two week with rates jumped almost 50%. The benchmark TC2 (MR2 gasoil UKC/USAC) rates surged from WS 115 on July 18th to WS 175 at the time of printing. The demand increase during the summer driving season certainly is one of the main reasons, but also the tight product supply from refineries in the US. According to EIA, crude input in PADD 1 refineries sharply dropped from an average of 674,000 b/d in June to 625,000 b/d so far in July ...
Tankers’ Embrace of New Technology
July 21, 2023
Building on our recent NB story (Weekly Blog June 23rd: Tanker Newbuilding Market: Cautiously Optimistic), we would like to further analyze the state of embrace of new technology. VLCCs, the largest and most expensive tankers, can better adopt new technological solutions as the marginal cost of installations will be less than on smaller ship types – making a lot more financial sense. As an example, a scrubber-fitted VLCCs saved as much as $20,000 in daily fuel costs compared with VLSFO consumption in March 2022 when Russia’s invasion in Ukraine pushed bunker prices up significantly. Figures support this when ...
Spotlight on Guyana
July 14, 2023
Guyana, a country of less than one million people, is poised to be the world’s fourth largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of the US, Qatar, Mexico, and Norway. A consortium led by ExxonMobil discovered the first major oil deposits in 2015, more than 100 miles offshore of Guyana. Crude exports from Guyana nearly tripled in 2022, driven by rising production (poised to reach 1.4 million b/d by 2030) and solid demand from Europe in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion. There are two FPSOs currently producing – FPSO Liza Unity and Liza Destiny – with the newly ...