Freight rates will likely remain “steady” because owners don’t want to take unprofitable business.
Nikos Varvaropoulos, a Dubai-based official at Optima Shipbrokers Ltd., comments by e-mail on supply and demand for supertankers to load 2 million-barrel cargoes of Middle East crude oil.
Charter rates for very large crude carriers, or VLCCs,
on the industry’s benchmark Saudi Arabia-to-Japan route fell 0.8 percent yesterday to 49.57 Worldscale points, according to the Baltic Exchange in London. A surplus of ships expanded to 15 percent yesterday from 10 percent a week earlier, Bloomberg News surveys showed.
“Yesterday was very active, but today is quiet.”
In terms of vessel supply, there are “still plenty left” seeking cargoes.
Freight rates will likely remain “steady” because owners don’t want to take unprofitable business, he said.
