New York tanker broker Poten & Partner, noting recent crude time spreads, predicts a revival of floating storage among VLCCs which could send rates for the largest tankers north again. This comes, despite Iran’s plans to take a number of VLCCs back into shipping rather than floating storage.
The lifting of the US crude export ban has created potential opportunities for floating storage of US produced oil.
Crude inventories in North America, Europe and Asia are at “very high levels compared to recent history”, Poten noted.
Floating storage, Poten argued, “is one of the most significant wildcards that could swing tanker rates in the short-to medium term”.
“Given the existing oversupply of crude in the oil market, in combination with limited remaining land-based storage capacity, any signal that traders and oil companies are starting to charter tankers to store crude oil (or products) will quickly and materially increase tanker rates,” Poten concluded in its weekly report.
