Strong Asian demand sends oil-shipping costs ever higher

Oil-shipping costs rose this week to the highest in almost three-and-a-half years as Asian refineries booked the most spot tankers in 21 months to collect crude and fuel oil from suppliers west of Egypt’s Suez Canal, lengthening voyages.

“Asian demand from all over the world is very strong,” said Odysseus Valatsas, chartering manager at Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd, an Athens-based company whose tanker fleet can carry more than 50 million barrels of oil.

“We haven’t seen volume or rates like this for quite some time.”

Source: Bloomberg