Earlier this week, I had reviewed and commented on a couple of tanker company Q2 reports (FRO, TRMD). Each company had also provided stats for Q3-done, and in FRO’s case, Q3-done was over 50% for each vessel category. Their averages looked pretty decent.
Then I skimmed Gibson’s report this week–
Though title refers to clean tanker side, first paragraph is a very adequate summary of both clean and dirty tankers. This year has seen the unusual swing of larger dirty tankers “cleaned up” to trade on the clean side. It does make sense given most European clean cargos get delivered via Cape of Good Hope.
But, in addition, if one heads to the end of the report, there are some stats on the major routes. A general statement to start - each vessel category is definitely covering operating costs. Most are probably covering break-even (depending on leverage, a VLCC owner could be hurting). But, the major observation is the deterioration of rates since end of Q2. Torm (TRMD) averaged $42K across LR2, LR1 and MR2 (the latter being a majority of their fleet)
My personal takeaway - temper my enthusiasm (I was quite impressed after reading Q2 and Q3-done for TRMD, HAFN & FRO)
