Monday, December 15, 2008

50 million barrels of Oil on the high seas

Oil companies and traders are storing at least 50m barrels of oil in supertankers in a clear sign of supply outstripping demand as the global economy slows.

The surge in floating storage, – enough to meet France’s oil imports for a month and the biggest since late 2001–, is likely to push the Opec oil cartel, which is due to meet on Wednesday in Oran, Algeria, to make a deeper production cut to reduce stocks. Storing oil in tankers is unusual as it is significantly more expensive than inland.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d638d9fc-caf7-11dd-87d7-000077b07658.html

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Tanker brokers Poten had a great research piece last week linking this floating storage to a big contango in forward price of crude oil. Also mentions that the vessels are chartered for 3 to 6 months at roughly $55k - $60k per day, in line with spot TCEs and the forward curve on VLCC hires.

Barry P