Tanker Weekly – March 13, 2011
(For The Week Ending March 11, 2011)
Baltic Dirty Tanker Index fell 1.9%; Baltic Clean Tanker Index was unchanged.
Japan earthquake effects: I seems that Japanese crude oil demand will initially fall because one fifth of Japanese refinery capacity is offline, but subsequently will rise fast because only possible substitution to nuclear electricity generation (one fourth off-line and years needed to bring it back on-line) is gas and oil-fired generation. Product demand (residual fuel oil and diesel fuel especially) will rise fast in coming days.
To sum up, near term positive for product tankers, negative for crude oil carriers. Longer term positive for both. Positive for LNG carriers.
