Drewry Tanker Forecaster 2Q06 Quarterly Analysis of the Tanker Market

摘要

The oil markets flared up yet again, both on account of geopolitical tensions (trouble between US and Iran related to latter's uranium enrichment program, terrorist strife in Nigeria, civilian unrest in Iraq) as well as physical constraints (refinery outages and turnarounds in US and Asia Pacific). Oil prices as a result, rose by an average 8.5% over the quarter. Refinery outages in unison with the lunar New Year celebrations in the Far East curtailed demand from the region. Downstream facilities in the US Gulf also limited runs in view of scheduled maintenances. Oil supply en the other hand, was restricted from the three main producing countries (West Africa, Iraq and Iran). Accordingly, the residual oil demand (ex-Asia Pacific) had to be met by output from other areas including North Africa, Med and Europe which pushed up the tonne mile (and consequently vessel) demand. The rise in vessel demand was however met by a higher growth in vessel supply, which in effect caused freight rates to falter by almost 20-30% for all the vessel segments in 1Q06.