Mette Frederiksen

2023 will be remembered for many reasons. For the tanker market, it was the year that VLCC freight finally remained within positive territory for a full 12 months. But it wasn’t a smooth ride. The market had increased volatility, and earnings swung dramatically, from barely covering operating expenses to highs of $100,000 per day.

The story of the VLCC tonnage profile remains optimistic, especially when considering the limited size of the orderbook. In 2023, the global VLCC fleet took delivery of 22 new vessels, a record low number in its own right, but what is truly remarkable is that only a single VLCC is scheduled for delivery in 2024. Owners have been, and still are, reluctant to lock in new orders. This is understandable, given the prevailing record-high newbuilding prices and the uncertainty surrounding future emissions and fuel requirements. Even the most cynical observer would have to predict a bullish trend for VLCCs for the next couple of years.

Looking back, many of the same factors that drove 2022’s tanker market trends remained relevant in 2023, including Russian oil displacement to Far Eastern markets, the OPEC+ alliance curbing global oil supplies and a “dark fleet” of often older tonnage continuing active trading, when in the past they would have exited the market years sooner.

The dark fleet and sanctions

While the conflict in Gaza is causing regional disruption, the ongoing war in Ukraine is still one of the most significant factors impacting the maritime sector. Russia’s actions and subsequent sanctions redirected the country’s crude to eastern buyers, reshaping trade patterns for the VLCC segment. Europe, pushed to seek oil supplies elsewhere, turned to the US, West Africa, and the Middle East, altering tradelanes and boosting VLCC competitiveness in the Atlantic basin. With no sign of a resolution to the conflict, these newly evolved trade routes are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

The so-called “dark fleet” provokes mixed emotions. The reason for the lack of vessels exiting the trading fleet can be attributed, almost entirely, to these vessels. Given the large amount of sanctioned oil utilising this fleet at lucrative freight rates, it is easy to understand why some owners are taking this risk, especially on ships that would otherwise be certified scrap candidates. While the dark fleet does draw tonnage away from the mainstream trading fleet, many of the vessels are old and the ownership structure is unclear, which poses big questions about maintenance, safety and regulatory compliance. To change this situation, authorities would need to intensify their commitment to enforcing sanctions. Recently, Western governments have been taking action by sending letters to individuals engaged in sanctioned trades, while the European Union’s latest round of places is requiring owners in the bloc to report any vessels sold to Russian entities, for use in Russian trade, and groups that may seek to avoid the G7 oil price cap. These developments do suggest the start of a more substantial effort to enforcement as we approach 2024.

At the other end of the scale, a country that has had its sanctions eased in 2023 is Venezuela. We now see Venezuelan cargoes lifted on mainstream VLCCs, which displaces the need for dark vessels. At the end of 2023, these cargoes are currently being lifted at a premium to US Gulf cargoes. We should keep in mind that sanctions have been eased with certain conditions in place, and any untoward actions by the Venezuelan government could see restrictions reimposed. The current tensions between Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana could impact the status quo, should they escalate.

Oil and the pull from the Far East

In oil markets, the OPEC+ alliance agreed at its latest meeting to making additional voluntary production cuts in the first quarter of 2024. While there is some uncertainty around the real size of the cut and headline numbers talk of 2.2 million barrels removed from the market, the reality is that 1.3 million barrels were already off the market stemming from Saudi Arabia and Russia’s voluntary cuts already in place. The voluntary nature of these cuts, combined with recent disagreement between some member states, puts a question mark over adherence. We have also seen in the past how member states react when OPEC+ does not align with its strategic objectives, such as Saudi Arabia’s actions in 2020 and recent announcements from Angola to reject any further production cut.

On the flip side, we observe a surge in oil production from non-OPEC producers, including an additional 1 million barrels a day from Atlantic basin producers expected in 2024. Brazil is now aligning themselves with OPEC+, and this adds a downside to current production outlooks. But this does not change the fact that the tonnemile effect from increased Atlantic Basin supply most likely heading to demand centres in the Far East helps to more than offset the potential loss in vessel demand driven by the OPEC+ curbs.

Another market driver that we must highlight is China. Whilst it is difficult to ignore the noises of a bleaker economic outlook, oil demand continues to grow, nonetheless, and monthly crude imports reached new records in 2023. The country’s economy is transitioning away from being based on manufacturing and construction. Instead, China is expanding its petrochemical capacity, aiming for greater self-sufficiency in feedstocks such as LPG, ethane, and naphtha, which now drive demand more than the traditional gasoline, jet, diesel, and gasoil. China’s oil demand is set to continue to expand in 2024 and the country is the main contributor to global growth next year.

Finally, we always need to factor in the bigger picture: the global economy. So, whilst VLCC fundamentals and the wider tanker markets look bullish, the macroeconomic picture is far less certain. Beyond geopolitical conflicts, the hot topics remain energy prices, inflation, and national debt. Most importantly for the shipping markets, a lot of nations continue to teeter on the edge of recession. Historically, the impact of a recession on oil demand varies widely from one crisis to another, with the Covid years being the worst in recent memory. Nobody knows the exact impact of a potential global recession, but it appears that the VLCC market is reasonably well-equipped to deal with one.

As we look ahead to 2024, the tanker markets are lined up with strong fundamentals. Demand continues to grow, even if at slightly more muted rates, but there is a geographical mismatch between oil demand and supply growth. This will continue to drive tonnemiles and therefore VLCC demand up. We expect much of the same as we have seen this year, with a strong upside potential supported by zero to negative supply growth.

In an unexpectedly lenient move, the US announced last week that sanctions against companies trading in Venezuelan oil will be dropped. This provides an opportunity for a reshuffling of oil movements, particularly in the Atlantic basin, and with that comes a renewed focus on VLCC employment and impacts on the ‘dark fleet’.

As its sanctions are removed, Venezuela can produce and export its oil freely. Discounts on the price of its crude will likely disappear, turning a significant amount of oil away from the dark trade and into mainstream markets. The sanctions are not lifted indefinitely, however. There is currently a time limit of six months in place on the sanctions relief to ensure that the Venezuelan government lives up to its end of the bargain to allow free and fair elections next year.

The oil sector in Venezuela has been heavily impacted by the sanctions, which have been in place since 2019. Oil production has dropped from highs of 2.5 million barrels per day to current levels of around just 800,000 barrels per day. The sector has suffered from years of under-investment and mismanagement, and any production ramp-up is unlikely to be quick. Forecasting agencies anticipate a limited recovery in oil production, but most agree that we will see a significant change to the flows from Venezuela.

We have seen around 400,000 barrels per day of seaborne crude and condensate flows from Venezuela this year. Just over half of these barrels are lifted on VLCCs, albeit with a portion of this marked as estimated liftings, as much of this happens on dark or grey vessels that are not all trackable via AIS. The Tankers International fixture data counts 5-6 liftings from Venezuela per month this year, most performed on dark fleet vessels with an average age of 18.3 years. Much of the sanctioned crude has been going to China, where teapot refineries have benefitted from the price-discounted supply. The recent easing of the sanctions has seen some supply head to the US and a small amount go to Spain.

As full sanctions relief is implemented, more Venezuelan crude is expected to flow to the US and Europe, with many US refineries built specifically to run on Venezuelan molecules. This could replace current US imports from the Middle East. However, the volume on that trade has not been substantial to the tonne-mile equation through 2023, and the VLCC segment accounts for roughly 3 liftings per month. The increased flow of crude from Venezuela to the US and Europe will boost demand for the Suezmax and Aframax segments.

A more significant impact on the VLCC market will come from current Venezuelan crude receivers having to find alternative supplies. Smaller Chinese independent refineries will lose access to cheap Venezuelan oil and may attempt to increase purchases of discounted Iranian and Russian barrels. As this is already a saturated market, supplies from Brazil and Colombia will likely satisfy any shortfall. This is a positive side effect, as the trade route from Brazil to China is predominantly a VLCC route.

A further implication will be that the trade route reshuffle will mean a return to the mainstream tanker fleet to lift the crude. The US and Europe will not welcome dark fleet vessels, and the same is the case for any additional VLCC loadings in Colombia and Brazil. A VLCC roundtrip from Brazil to China takes around 95 days to complete, so each additional monthly lifting on this route would employ 3 VLCCs full time. This means that if the current 5-6 monthly cargoes from Venezuela to China shift to load on mainstream VLCCs from Brazil, it will add demand for 15-18 mainstream vessels. This shows the potential scale of the impact of moving these oil flows into the conventional tanker market.

As Venezuelan sanctions are lifted for the first time in nearly 5 years, the market will be impacted in new and multiple ways. To stay informed on the latest market insight and data, download our app here: https://app.tankersinternational.com/

The Atlantic basin is providing massive support for the VLCC tanker market. Growing supply from the region means long tonne-miles across the Atlantic as much of the oil is being shipped to the Far East. In the Far East, we continue to see demand from China ramping up after COVID lockdowns. While the market’s expectations for China were perhaps too optimistic to begin with, we are still seeing signs of recovery, and oil demand remains healthy and likely to improve progressively. Furthermore, despite weaker economic data and somewhat depressed market sentiment in recent weeks, major reporting agencies have not made significant downward revisions to oil demand forecasts yet.

Low vessel supply growth is adding to the good news for shipowners. Despite an ageing fleet, shipowners remain reluctant to place newbuild orders, with not a single VLCC to be delivered in 2024 and only one ship in 2025 and one in 2026.

This shortage in newbuilds is allowing market fundamentals to rebalance after the massive drop in demand of the COVID years. Even the production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations such as Saudi Arabia have not dampened the mood. Rather, the capped volumes are expected to be filled by producers such as Brazil, resulting in more long tonne-miles for VLCCs across the Atlantic to Asia. The Chinese market is huge and is one of the key drivers of the VLCC market, and the resumption of trade there is countering other market concerns.

Historically in the freight market, we have seen VLCC rates putting pressure on Suezmax rates, which have then put pressure on Aframax rates. However, since the invasion of Ukraine, this trend has largely reversed. Aframax and Suezmax rates spiked initially when some owners took the risk of shipping Russian crude. As freight levels in the smaller tanker segments rose to historical highs, the VLCC segment became competitive in markets that it has not traditionally traded in, such as West Africa and US Gulf to European destinations. This has given VLCC owners optionality. They can choose to keep their vessels local in the West or trade them longer-haul on the traditional routes to Asia, depending on their views on the freight market.

The VLCC market has been seasonal in the past, with high rates in winter and lower rates in summer. However, this pattern has weakened over the last few years, and this year in particular, we are experiencing sound second-quarter results that have kept the market buoyant amidst the borderline recession in some parts of the world and the lingering macro-economic effects of the pandemic.

In 2023, Brazil introduced a new freight tax, which caused oil exports to drop dramatically. Oil companies reduced or halted their VLCC export programmes rather than paying the additional costs. This decision appears to have coincided with an increase in West African VLCC fixtures to meet part of the demand, particularly from China, with West African fixtures in June increasing by at least 50% month-on-month.

The demand for high oil volumes from Africa over long tonne-miles to China has been good news for VLCCs. The oil export tax in Brazil is due to end in July, and the Brazilian market is likely to resume, and while this may remove some VLCC trade from West Africa, it is still long tonne-miles for VLCCs.

The prominence of the Atlantic basin trade for VLCCs is therefore set to continue to keep shipowners smiling well into the next quarter.

Source: Tankers International

It’s clear that trading patterns for VLCCs have changed significantly over the last 12 months. European oil markets have seen a clear shift away from Russian crude since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Official sanctions by the EU on Russian crude in place today mean that we now see virtually no Russian crude flowing into Europe and other Western economies. In June 2022, the EU Council adopted a sixth package of sanctions that, amongst others, prohibited the purchase, import or transfer of seaborne crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia into the EU. The restrictions applied from 5 December 2022 for crude oil and from 5 February 2023 for refined petroleum products.

Europe has therefore had to find alternative crude supplies from other sources. We have seen Europe increase its imports from the Middle East, as well as Atlantic based oil suppliers including West Africa, the US and South America.

Smaller tankers have traditionally serviced the routes from these Atlantic basin suppliers to Europe, but in 2022 we saw a marked increase in the use of VLCCs. There were 28 VLCC loadings destined for Europe in August alone. This compares to just 1-4 monthly liftings prior to restrictions on Russian barrels.

Several market factors have aided this development. Firstly, we have simply seen more seaborne oil imports into Europe as Russia’s pipeline network and short haul shuttle shipments were no longer an option.

While the smaller tanker segments – Suezmax and Aframax – saw freight rate spikes in the immediate aftermath of the war breaking out, the VLCC segment had no direct links to Russia, so the freight environment for this group of ships remained flat and relatively low. This relatively weak VLCC freight market allowed VLCCs to compete with the smaller segments on the inter-Atlantic routes that in the past they had zero involvement in.

From the second quarter of 2022 onwards, we saw a sharp rise in inter-Atlantic VLCC liftings, and this elevated level of activity has persisted since. Our proprietary fixture app data does show a short-lived dip in VLCC activity in September and October last year. This was partly due to a drop in crude flows into Europe, according to data from Kpler. This was also the time when the VLCC freight market began its strong recovery, and we saw a proportional increase in the use of smaller tankers compared to the record month of August for the VLCC segment.

Since then, it appears that the inter-Atlantic trade routes have found a new balance and that they are here to stay. The use of VLCC tonnage has increased to 21-23 liftings per month over the last four months.

This trend is a positive development for shipowners. It allows vessel owners to keep their ships in short-haul business in a relatively high market and to be able to load another cargo while freight is high. This can be more lucrative than locking the vessel in on a long-haul trade and risking that the market may have fallen by the time of the next load.

This dynamic creates more volatility in the market with uncertainties around discharge times and with more frequent port operations that shorter voyages inherently carry. The result is the port to sailing time ratio goes up. This new dynamic also allows for increasingly creative trade combinations, and by triangulating a vessel, a shipowner can maximise their earnings compared to a standard Middle East to China trade route, which carries an equal amount of laden to ballast days.

On 25 February 2023 the EU adopted its 10th package of sanctions against Russia and is expected to announce more new sanctions in the coming weeks. We continue to monitor the situation, but we expect the current VLCC market conditions to persist throughout 2023, and beyond.