Tanker turnaround propels ClarkSea Index to new highs, now double the 10-year average
Shipping’s bountiful start to 2022 is reaping big profits across the main sectors for the first time in years.
The ClarkSea Index is a useful barometer of shipping fortunes. Created by Clarkson Research Services in 1990, the weighted index of tanker, bulk carrier, containership and gas carrier earnings recorded its highest annual average last year since the boom period of 2008. The good times have rolled comfortably into 2022, with the one element missing from the party – tankers – now firmly getting in on the act too.
The ClarkSea Index has tracked at $36,507 per day in the opening 15 weeks of the year, a 27% improvement over 2021’s average of $28,700 a day, and is now double the 10-year average.
Trends in the container sector have continued in “spectacular vein”, Clarksons reported in its latest weekly report while bulk carriers have registered the strongest start to a year since 2008 at $22,880 a day, up 28% year-on-year.
However, it is in the tanker sector that earnings see the most pronounced turnaround, helping propel the overall index higher. In the first half of April average tanker earnings have jumped to around $40,000 a day, in the top 10% of all values since 1990, and are a dramatic improvement compared to an average of around $8,000 a day between mid-2020 and February 2022.
