Poten & Partners Issues a New Study 'Tanker Prospects'
28 September 1998
Poten & Partners Issues a New Study 'Tanker Prospects'
NEW YORK--Sept. 25, 1998--Poten & Partners, a major New York headquartered ship and cargo brokerage and consulting firm, announced its publication of 'Tanker Prospects for the 21st Century', a forecast of tanker rates to 2005.
The 208-page report covers worldwide economic activity, oil demand, and crude oil flows for five classes of tankers. Projected demand for each class of tanker is compared to projected supply to arrive at a supply/demand balance, forming the basis for a rate forecast.
Future rates are subject to a number of cross-currents. While the Asian Contagion has made a dramatic change of economic activity in several Southeast Asian nations, oil consumption is still expected to grow in Asian nations not significantly affected by the Asian Contagion plus Europe and North America. This does not sound particularly negative for tanker owners, but another cross current is significant growth in short haul oil from Latin America, West Africa, North Sea, offshore Gulf of Mexico. This will shorten the average voyage length reducing dependence for Middle East crude in the Atlantic basin. In the Pacific Basin, dependence of Middle East crude will increase.
These shifts in oil flows affect demand for various size classes of tankers differently. Moreover, there are the cross currents of supply burgeoning from vessels currently under construction and mandatory MARPOL phase-out for a large portion of the world tanker fleet. The resulting precarious supply/demand balance can tilt one way or the other depending on how much shipbuilders cut prices to induce orders and how many tankers are scrapped.
'Tanker Prospects' integrates these cross-currents to arrive at an assessment of future rates based on today's perceptions. It is extremely timely because trends, that had persisted for a number of years, have been broken by the events in Asia. 'Tanker Prospects' contains a wealth of information and is a valuable reference and planning aid for charterers, owners, financial institutions, and shipyards on making decisions on buying, selling, chartering, owning, financing and building various classes of tankers in these times of uncertainty and turmoil.
For further information, contact Roy Nersesian or Mogens Petersen at Poten & Partners' New York office (Phone: 212/230-2000/Fax: 212/355-0295/ e-mail: tankers@poten.com.