Hurricanes and other severe weather disruptions could halt offshore crude production as well as refinery runs, ultimately impacting tanker demand for both oil imports and exports. Hurricanes serve as one of the key downside risks for US Gulf refineries to shut or reduce their runs, tightening US’s product balances and limiting available exports. In tandem with the seasonal maintenance in Spring and Fall, we saw PADD 3 refinery utilization sharply reduced month-over-month by 11.5% in Sep 2017 (Hurricane Harvey), 3.1% in Aug 2020 (Hurricane Laura) and 6.9% in Sep 2021 (Hurricane Ida). However, despite notable storms ...
USG VLCC Terminal Projects: A Game Changer
Sept. 13, 2024
The need for enhanced crude export capabilities has been identified amid rising production and exports out of the US Gulf, with several VLCC Terminal projects scheduled to take place. According to US EIA, US crude production is expected to rapidly increase from 12.5 mil b/d in 2023 to 14.4 mil b/d in 2030, raising the US’s crude balance above the 4.0 mil b/d mark and pushing over 6.5 million b/d of crude to be exported from the US Gulf region. Currently, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is the only US ...
McQ Services Mid-Year Tanker Market Update
Sept. 6, 2024
McQuilling Services is pleased to announce the release of the 2024 Mid-Year Tanker Market Update. This 123-page report provides a detailed analysis of oil fundamentals, global economic and geopolitical context in addition to tanker demand and supply projections across eight vessel classes. The interaction of tanker demand and vessel supply variables is processed using advanced quantitative modeling to produce a five-year spot and time charter equivalent (TCE) forecast for eight vessel classes across 27 benchmark tanker trades, plus five triangulated trades.
Our 2024-2028 Tanker Market Outlook (TMO) forecasts published in January, which derived from quantitative models and qualitative adjustments, again ...
LR2 and MR2 Switchovers
Aug. 9, 2024
In the past, we have discussed the constant switchovers for LR2s to trade between crude and refined products, and more importantly the impact on tanker supply. The latest statistics have revealed a balanced trend after the rapid increase of dirty-trading LR2s rejoining the CPP fleet in the first half of the year. The pattern could be explained by the Red Sea tension which pushed LR2 tankers to reroute through the Cape of Good Hope and notably increased the average sailing distance for AG>Europe by 34%.
Interestingly, switchovers in smaller vessel classes have also played an important role. Since Jan ...
VLCC and Suezmaxes Carrying CPP Cargoes
Aug. 2, 2024
It is not uncommon for VLCCs and Suezmaxes to carry clean petroleum products, but only for maiden voyages after the tanker delivered from the newbuilding yards. Since 2018, we have captured 20% of newbuilding VLCCs and 62% of Suezmaxes carried at least one CPP cargo from the East to Africa or the European market, significantly taking away demand that could have been carried by LR2s.
This trend in 2024, however, has been mind-blowing. Due to the extremely light orderbook for 2024 (only 1 VLCC and 7 Suezmaxes), we have seen under average number of CPP cargoes carried by newbuilding tankers ...
