Busy products shipments on refinery outages

摘要

Refinery maintenance in Asia has been a boon for products tankers. Freight rates have gone up for six consecutive weeks and the ships are making five-digit sums every day. Last week, freight rates on the benchmark Singapore-Japan route averaged W182.75($15,190/day),up from Wl 25 in late February. "In Asia, there are more cargoes than ships as refineries are carrying out maintenance in March and April, resulting in traders fixing cargoes to the Far East to counter the shortage of products," said a broker in Singapore.