As many as 35 oil tankers that often carry crude or gas oil might swap to carrying cleaner merchandise like diesel and jet gas within the subsequent two months as shipowners chase increased profitability, oil analytics agency Kpler mentioned in a LinkedIn submit.
An LR2 (long-range 2) sort tanker sometimes carries cargoes of about 90,000 metric tons of cleaner fuels. For an Aframax tanker, which carries an analogous quantity, to change to an LR2 it could have to be cleaned completely of contaminants which might spoil gasoline or center distillate cargoes.
“Document excessive LR2 productiveness and declining Aframax productiveness have set the stage for a big swap from soiled to wash,” Kpler mentioned.
Kpler added that unfold between the price of chartering LR2s carrying clear merchandise and Aframaxes carrying crude and gas oil hit a document excessive of $60,000 a day final week, amid tightness in LR2 capability as Houthi assaults within the Purple Sea drive vessels to take longer voyages round Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Solely a swap from soiled to wash might ease this tightness, Kpler added.
“Evaluation of the unfold between LR2 and Aframax fleet productiveness suggests between 15 and 35 vessels might make the swap,” Kpler mentioned, a transfer which might assist ease LR2 charges barely.
(Reuters – Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar and Robert Harvey Modifying by Kirsten Donovan)
