The way the tanker market is at the moment owners can't really be blamed for thinking that they have never had it so good. Almost every week sees a new record rate and earnings up to levels never before seen. But as always there are some grey heads with long memories who think they've seen it all before and better, and there are always those boring statisticians out there who can find the numbers to prove any argument. This week the rate for the marker AG-NWE route for a VLCC stands at WS183, which is equivalent to about dollar 37 a ton of crude oil. After allowing for bunkers and port charges, the time charter equivalent earnings come out at a little over dollar 131,000 a day for a modern VLCC. After a generous allowance for operating costs, that still leaves net earnings of around dollar 8.25m a voyage or dollar 41 m a year. Even for a (second-hand) ship costing around dollar 100m to trade immediately that is a reasonable return.
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