Product tanker operator Concordia Maritime, a company in Swedish family-owned Stena Sphere conglomerate, has released its annual report for 2018 and the chief executive, Kim Ullman, remains confident of the outlook for the product tanker sector.
Writing in the foreword to the 2018 annual report, Mr Ullman noted it had been a year of “Reduced tanker demand volumes during the first three quarters brought a weak tanker market with low rates in all segments,” but the long-awaited turnaround appeared in Q4 2018.
While the focus of attention was on the increase in rates in the VLCC sector, “In just a few weeks, rates in the MR segment soared from US$4,000 per day to about US$20,000 per day – an example of how fast the conditions within tanker shipping can fluctuate,” he reported.
Equally importantly, he was able to report no incidents involving Concordia vessels for the fifth consecutive year.
It is the supply-side story that is creating smiles in the Concordia boardroom. “It gets really exciting when we then look at the supply side.”
Mr Ullman reported that the weak markets of the last few years resulted in lower than average orders, with the average ratio between newbuilding orders and fleet size at just under 16% for the last 10 years, but just 9% at the beginning of 2019.
Mr Ullman stated that Concordia’s exposure to the spot market boded well in the run up to IMO low sulphur fuel market cap in 2020. “Everyone who has followed us [Concordia] and the tanker market knows that the last few years have been challenging. We now look forward to tackling a number of exciting years ahead – starting in 2019.”
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