Since the start of October 2024, in general, shipping names have been taking a beating. In particular, the conventional tanker companies (crude, refined, both) have been in the red. The market is coming off Golden Week, so I opted to have links for two different brokers
Carriers:
Advanced Shipping:
Reason for two - because of the discrepancy in newbuild ordering.
The big item that both reported is a Shell order of 10 MRs. This is interesting for two reasons
- Since the Exxon Valdez oil spill, most oil majors got out of the vessel ownership business. Sure, the majors required oil tankers to move crude oil from production & store sites to refineries. Or transport product cargos from refineries. Or, for trading. But, generally, they met these requirements by arrangements with independent tanker companies (DHT, INSW, FRO, etc)
- The last few years, Shell has trimmed its refinery portfolio significantly. Yes, the company still has chemical facilities separate from the remaining refineries. [Edit: In 2020, Shell announced plans to reduce oil refineries from 14 down to 6 refineries by 2025. Some e.g. Deer Park oil refinery has already been sold to Pemex. But, Shell still has a separate chemical facility in Deer Park.
Shell to reduce refinery portfolio to six sites from 14 | ICIS ]
Don’t know the reason - maybe Shell sees a growth opportunity developing.
Maybe one can indirectly link some of that to the other tanker types ordered - Ethane, Ammonia and LPG (2 of each this past week)
On the transactional side
- In general, more modern dry bulk vessels being sold.
- A block sale of smaller, older container vessels
- Hafnia (HAFN) selling an older tanker