The demand for oil supertankers in the Persian Gulf has fallen, most likely as a result of the reduced exports that are coming out of Iran due to the sanctions placed upon them by western nations.
This fall in demand has led to a glut in supertankers each competing for two million dollar cargoes, and as a result daily rates for freighting has dropped.
Bloomberg News released a survey saying that seven shipbrokers and owners have estimated that for the next 30 days there will be a 22 percent surplus of very large crude tankers compared to cargoes available; an increase of 2.5 percent over last week.
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RS Platou Markets AS, an investment bank from Oslo, stated that yesterday only one of the waiting tankers was booked, leaving the others to hope that today they will be the chosen one. Per Mansson, the managing director of the shipbroker Norocea Stockholm AB, noted that the build-up of tankers in the Gulf is being compounded by the return of tankers that had been chartered two months ago.
Mansson spoke to Bloomberg and explained to them that "December and January did not pick up as we thought. It's going to be tough. We will work with a big overhang of vessels every month."
According to the Baltic Exchange in London, tankers finding work in the Gulf of Persia to ship cargoes of two million barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia to Japan are now receiving $8,994 a day, an 11 percent fall from pervious prices.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More