Weight of Freight: Size Matters – owners and charterers adjust to a changing tanker market

From 1967 until the oil crisis of 1973 there were orders for about 80 very large crude carriers (VLCC) and 40 ultra large crude carriers (ULCC), according to engine manufacturer Wartsila. This boom was followed by the total collapse of the newbuild market for these tankers until the middle of the 1980s. Since then, over 400 VLCC have been ordered, but it took more than 20 years before the next ULCC contract was signed.

The new TI class of ULCCs were delivered in the early 2000s, but within a decade most had been converted to floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels (FSOs) for use in the Mideast Gulf and southeast Asia. Prizing quantity over flexibility, these ships were wider than the new Panama Canal locks (begun in 2007 and completed in 2016), and could not travel through the Suez Canal unless on a ballast voyage.

Their massive capacity of more than 3mn barrels of crude oil reflected climbing global oil demand – almost double what it was in 1973 – and China’s arrival as the world's largest importer of crude oil. Some forecasters now predict oil demand will peak in 2030, reducing the need for supertankers, but other forces have seen shipowners and others return to newbuilding markets for VLCCs in recent months.

Pandemics, infrastructure projects, price wars and actual wars have moved and lengthened trade flows in the last four years, making larger vessels more attractive because of their economies of scale. These have impacted the make-up of the global tanker fleet in other ways as well, such as prompting a small recovery in interest in small Panamax tankers, which have long been sliding out of existence.

The role of vessel size in tanker freight markets is sometimes underappreciated. In the wake of the G7+ ban on imports of Russian crude and oil and products, and attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden by Yemen’s Houthi militants, flows of crude oil have had to make massive diversions. Russian crude oil is flowing now to India and China rather than to Europe, while Europe’s imports of oil, diesel and jet fuel from the Mideast Gulf are taking two weeks longer, going around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Houthi attacks. This has pushed up tonne-miles – a measure of shipping demand – to record levels. Global clean Long Range 2 (LR2) tanker tonne-miles rose to a record high in May this year, data from analytics firm Kpler show, while tonne-miles for dirty Aframax tankers rose to a record high in May last year. It has also supported freight rates.

High freight rates have brought smaller vessels into competition with larger tankers, at the same time as long routes have increased the appeal of larger ships. The Atlantic basin appears to be key site for increases in production (from the US, Brazil, Guyana and even Namibia), and an eastward shift in refining capacity globally will further entrench these long routes and demand for economies of scale.

Aframax and LR2 tankers are the same sized ships carrying around 80,000-120,000t of crude oil or products. LR2 tankers have coated tanks, which allows them to carry both dirty and clean cargoes, and shipowners may switch their

LR2/Aframax vessels between the clean and dirty markets, with expensive cleaning, depending on which offers them the best returns. But an unusually high number of VLCCs – at least six – have also switched from dirty to clean recently. Shipowner Okeanis, which now has three of its VLCCs transporting clean products, said it had cleaned up another one in the third quarter.

A VLCC switching from crude to products is very rare. Switching to clean products from crude is estimated to cost around $1mn for a VLCC. It takes several days to clean the vessel's tanks, during which time the tanker is not generating revenue. But a seasonal slide in VLCC rates in the northern hemisphere this summer has made cleaning an attractive option for shipowners, while their economies of scale make the larger tankers more attractive to clean charterers as product voyages lengthen.

Argus assessed the cost of shipping a 280,000t VLCC of crude from the Mideast Gulf to northwest Europe or the Mediterranean averaged $10.52/t in June, much lower than the average cost of $67.94/t for shipping a 90,000t LR2 clean oil cargo on the same route in the same period. It is likely these vessels will stay in the products market, as cleaning a ship is a costly undertaking for a single voyage.

Typically, a VLCC will only carry a clean cargo when it is new and on its inaugural voyage, but just one new VLCC has joined the fleet this year, further incentivising traders to clean up vessels as demand for larger ones increases. This year has seen a jump in demand for new VLCCs, with 29 ordered so far. There were 20 ordered in 2023, just six in 2023 and 32 in the whole of 2021, Kpler data show. But the vast majority of these new VLCCs will not hit the water until 2026, 2027 or later because of a shortage of shipyard capacity.

Last year and 2024 also saw the first substantial newbuilding orders for Panamax tankers, also called LR1s, since 2017. Product tanker owner Hafnia and trader Mercuria recently partnered to launch a Panamax pool. The rationale may be that Panamax vessels can pass through the older locks at the Panama Canal, and so are not subject to the same draft restrictions imposed because of drought that has throttled transits and led to shipowners paying exorbitant auction fees to transit.

Aframaxes and MRs will remain the workhorses of crude and product tanker markets respectively, but the stretching and discombobulation of trade routes (which appear likely to stay) has already driven changes in which vessels are used and which are ordered. When these ships hit the water, they will join a tanker market very different to the one owners and charterers were operating in just four years ago.