Energy News Beat

The post Shipping’s ultimate Year of the Snake fortune guide published today appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

ContributionsOperations

The post 2025 will see fewer but better hires in commercial shipping appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Daily Standup Top Stories

How a Chinese AI Startup Just Shook the Tech Market Amid Security Concerns

January 28, 2025 Clark Savage

Stuart Turley: [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Daily. Stand up. My name’s Stu Turley President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. Today is January 29th. We’re already rolling. Let’s go through the top stories for the day. How a Chinese a startup just took the tech market amid security concerns. Holy cow, Batman. What’s going on there? Ukrainian energy infrastructure on the verge of collapse. Russian LNG exports hit a new record. An on site natural gas plant will help power star Gates first data center public filings show. And Trump’s bold vision unleashing America’s energy potential. I’ll tell you, there is a lot cooking around the world right now. And now let’s get started on this one. [00:01:00][49.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:00] This one is actually from a Nathan his Substack Nathan’s newsletter on his substack Nathan Hammer. And he is one cool cat. I recommend everybody go follow him. The article How a Chinese AI Startup Just Shook the Tech Market Amid Security Concerns. Deep sea. Actually I used approximately 2000 and very h 800 chips which are less powerful than those used by U.S. companies spending less than 6 million on development. This is taking the world by surprise. When you take a look at Nvidia’s stock, it took a was down 17%. Microsoft was down 2%. Google was down on it, 4%. ASML Holdings was down 5.75%. And if this does come through that you to sit and take a smaller chip, datacenters are going to be able to get by on less chips and less expensive chips, which is a great thing. So I don’t think we’re done seeing how all the data centers are going to be impactful and how all this is going to play out. So just keep an eye out for it. And I’m going to go into some more in the Stargate in Abilene here in just a second. [00:02:23][83.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:23] Ukrainian in energy infrastructure on the verge of collapse. This is out of Forbes Caves. Power grid is reportedly on its knees following recent Russian strikes. Ukraine energy infrastructure is reportedly nearing a collapse following sustained Russian attacks early 2024. Moscow added Ukraine power plants to its list of legitimate military targets. I’ll tell you what, I just wish everybody would get this war done. Ukraine is not going to be able to take any land back. And quite honestly, President Putin was provoked by the NATO. Go ahead and going through and and constantly adding new countries closer to Russian border. So this is not just a one sided event. We just need to end it. And President Trump and President Putin, I think, are going to be able to get this thing ended here fairly quickly. But what this does mean is who’s going to go in and build this back up. When you take a look at the contracts, I’m tired of the United States paying for Ukraine. Did I say that out loud? [00:03:35][71.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:36] The Russian LNG exports hit a whole new high EU purchase more than half of the volumes. Despite vows to eliminate dependance on the sanctioned energy country, Russia exported 33 million tons of LNG last year and more than half of that went to the EU market. The figure represents a 4% increase from the previous record of 32.9 million tons set in 2022. And this is even with having a an expansion unit to the Arctic LNG not on line, the EU accounted for approximately 17.4 million tons or 52% of the Russian total LNG France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands were the largest buyers of Russian LNG. Again, this goes back to we need to have low cost natural gas around the world. And if we realized that the Ukraine war was brought on by the management of the EU and the management of NATO as well as Russia, nobody is I’m not throwing anybody saying anybody’s innocent here, but let’s end this. Let’s end this fight and let’s get it all negotiated. And President Putin, if you’ve listened to my podcast with George Macmillan and everything else, it’s all about land power versus sea power and what the United States. And what the EU tried to negotiate in keep Russia from monetizing their energy wealth. And he was able to anyway. So let’s just end this and let’s everybody get back to it, because if Germany does not get low cost Russian energy, Russian natural gas, soon they will finish. The Green New Party will be extremely happy because they will have been fully industrialized and so goes Germany. So goes the EU. We need honestly for President Trump to be able to say he’s ending the Ukraine war. So the Democrats don’t say, you lost the Ukraine war and now you’ve lost the EU. They’re going to blame this on on President Trump when he inherited an absolute abysmal situation. [00:06:04][147.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:04] So let’s go to this next story. An on site natural gas plant will help star Gates first data center. The public finding show this is in the Stargate Data Center, which is in Abilene, Texas. Developers filed permits to operate natural gas turbines with a combined capacity of 360MW. It Stargate site in Abilene, Texas, would be enough to power 90,000 homes. What this brings up, and I talked about this today on a podcast in Dallas with RT Trevino David Blackmon and Dr. Ed Ireland. And we talked about this from his perspective, that the microgrids in the United States are going to become very critical. If you have money, you will be able to afford a natural gas power plant for your own very own. This is critical from the standpoint that I data centers will not be built in New York, California or any Democrat run cities where pipelines have not been allowed to be put in. Because Ray Trevino basically pointed out, Bill Gates said that we need natural gas in order to get there because of the nuclear processing and getting applications and the regulatory processes that were put in during the Nixon administration. And they have not been fixed yet. Very, very important article, and I’m glad that we’re there. [00:07:40][95.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:41] So let’s finish up with this story here. With Trump’s bold vision unleashing America’s energy potential, this is really important in that with the energy leaders that I’m talking to around actually around the world, the declaration of a national emergency by President Trump is phenomenal. This is going to allow us to try to really help reduce the cost for everyone. But it’s what, more importantly, it’s putting a focus on the rest of the world, on being able to say that we need to look at all types of energy. We need to look at how do we get the lowest kilowatt cost per kilowatt per hour to everyone on the planet with the least amount of impact on the environment. And by the way, I’ve been saying that for a very long time. So America will be a manufacturing nation once again and we have something that is no other manufacturing nation will have the largest amount of oil and gas than any other country on earth. We are going to use it and we’re going to bring prices down. I applaud President Trump in how he’s handling this, and he’s setting a tone for the rest of the country and the rest of the world. That is, if you are a political leader. Regimes change, if energy is not low cost and sustainable. And so New York, California and New Jersey take note. Please fire up some natural gas pipelines because those are a lot less pollutants than the renewable or non-sustainable because people are tired of paying for the additional fees and they’re they’re going to want low cost energy and we can have it with lower impact on the environment. [00:09:41][119.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:41] So with that, like subscribe, hey, we’ve got a new sponsor coming around, Reese Consulting. We are so proud to have our new sponsor. We’ve got the logos coming in and it is just really pretty cool because Reese Consulting is one of the United States leaders in the natural gas field, and it says a lot for the rich for the show to have new sponsors coming on board. So we. That like subscribe, share. Bring this to your pets and look forward and see you next. [00:09:41][0.0][568.4]

The post Trump’s Energy Vision appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

Tankers

The global crude tanker fleet is getting older and older. You’d have to go all the way back to the year 1988 to find the time when there were fewer crude tanker newbuild deliveries than last year.

In 2024, new crude oil tanker deliveries dropped to a 36-year low as only 17 new tankers, with a capacity of 2.5m dwt, joined the fleet, according to Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO. Compared to 2023, the capacity delivered dropped by 74%.

Combined with low levels of recycling during the past couple of years, the minimal addition of new tonnage has driven the average age of crude tankers to the the highest recorded since 1999, according to BIMCO data.

Greek broker Xclusiv Shipbrokers also has some sobering statistics on the growing vintage state of the tanker fleet.

“Turning into 2025, vessels have added one year to their age, significantly altering the current discussion around fleet age groups,” Xclusiv stated in a new market report.

Xclusiv data shows 18% of the total tanker fleet is now aged 21 years old or older, a 12% increase compared to the same period in 2024. The 16- to 20-year-old tanker age group constitutes 29% of the total tanker fleet, reflecting a 13% increase from January 2024.

In the 2020s to date, the container and LNG sectors have dominated shipyard orderbooks, elbowing out dry bulk and tanker owners from slots at the world’s premier shipbuilders. With fleets ageing rapidly, leading charterers acknowledge they will have to relax their restrictions on chartering older units.

Dry bulk

For the first time, the capesize fleet is carrying more bauxite than coal, according to broker Arrow.

“Volumes from Guinea have surged at the start of the year, whilst panamaxes have been cannibalising capesize coal cargoes. This leaves bauxite as the number two capesize commodity, after iron ore,” Arrow stated in a new report.

China imported 159m tonnes of bauxite last year, up by 18m tonnes over 2023’s total, with 77% of all shipments carried out on capes, according to AXS data.

“This owes not just to Guinea’s emergence as the world’s dominant supplier of the raw material, but also the rising capesize share of Australian bauxite trades in recent years, quadrupling from 2021 to reach 20% last year,” explains a new report from another broker, Braemar.

“Infrastructure improvements in West Africa, led by Guinea and including Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, are expected to drive further increases in supply for the seaborne market, and especially supply for China,” predicts rival broker BRS who is forecasting exports of the mined product from West Africa to China to increase by another 20m tonnes this year.

“Beijing’s continuous promotion of the ‘New Three’ (namely electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar panels) is significantly boosting the demand for aluminium products,” BRS pointed out in its latest weekly dry bulk report.

“Considering the longer voyage distances, the bauxite market is expected to exert an increasing influence on the capesize segment via heightened volatility in the fronthaul route,” BRS concluded.

Containers

Liner owners and operators stand to lose the most amount of profits from the reopening of the Red Sea as the chart below from Jefferies clearly shows.

The Houthis of Yemen have rowed back from attacking merchant shipping following January 19’s historic ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, potentially bringing an end to the 14-month long Red Sea shipping crisis.

With the Suez Canal potentially coming back into play, analysts at Sea-Intelligence suggest this could lead to rates dropping somewhere between 60 to 70% over a six-month period to levels last seen towards the end of 2023.

In total, Linerlytica estimates suggest up to 7% or 2m teu of the global fleet could be coming back to market once Middle Eastern waters are deemed safe, the Red Sea spelling red ink for much of the liner world.

The post Analyst Abstract appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The container shipping freight market has felt like a game of snakes and ladders since the pandemic. Shippers negotiate the trade board, hoping to make steady progress. Sometimes the rates they pay climb exponentially up a ladder for a while, for instance when the pandemic and the Red Sea crisis caused elevated rates. Occasionally the market slips on a snake and freight rates slide back toward the long-term average.

In January, Yemen’s Houthi militia generously offered to stop attacking commercial shipping sailing under most flags. Freight rate expectations (and futures) are falling as confidence grows that the Suez Canal route from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean will become viable once again. The Freightos rate assessment from China to the Med stood at $5,075 per feu on January 24, down 4% on the week and 11% over four weeks. On the related China to North Europe voyage, rates stood at $4,122 per feu on January 24, which was 12% lower than on January 17 and 17% lower than on December 27.

A bigger snake for rates to slide down lurks in Washington DC where Donald Trump continues to threaten to charge import tariffs on goods arriving from overseas. Most US non-energy imports arrive in shipping containers and the transpacific market stands to be most affected. Last year, US containerised imports were 28.2m teu, a 13% increase over 2023. Around four in 10 of those imports came from China. December containerised imports were 2.38m teu, just below the nation’s 2.4m teu monthly capacity and only the third month on record when imports exceeded 2.3m teu. Imports from China increased in December by 1.7% monthly and by 14.5% year on year to 903,000 teu. These numbers will not please Darth Orange.

Despite the massive import figures, freight rates from China to the US west coast fell from a monthly average of $5,200 in November to $4,300 in December, but so far in January they are back on the ladder, averaging $5,528. On the all-water service from China to the US east coast, rates averaged $5,500 in November, $5,700 in December and for January so far they average $6,801. Invading Panama to control its canal might not make these rates fall. Previous attempts to reshore manufacturing to the US have enjoyed limited success and have not staunched the flow of imports, so it looks like the tariffs will surely come.

Since the global financial crisis, US GDP has approximately doubled from $14trn to $28trn. In that time, EU GDP has grown from $16trn to $18trn. The EU manufacturing powerhouse, Germany, is entering its third year of recession. The European Commission published a long report which identified a lack of competition between EU members and too much bureaucracy as the main reasons for this woeful performance. The solution that Ursula von der Leyen proposes includes more pan-European legislation such as a single capital market. Maybe it will work.

Trade data meanwhile continues to underperform. European containerised exports stood at an estimated (some data still to come in) 2.27m teu for December 2024, lower than 2.30m teu in November and 2.35m teu in December 2023. Full year 2024 exports were an estimated 27.6m teu compared to 27.2m in 2023 but lower than in any year between 2018 and 2022 when they averaged 29.9m teu. The EU’s main export market is North America. Freight rates on the westbound transatlantic voyage were $2,172 on January 24, down 14% since December 27. The January to date average of $2,212 is the lowest since $1,841 in September. On the eastbound transatlantic voyage, rates average $600 in January, their best performance since October. Trump will doubtless want to see the gap close further.

In Q1 this year several alliances are reshuffling their members. Maersk is leaving its 2M alliance with MSC and entering into the Gemini Cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd. The latter is leaving THE Alliance whose members will now include MSC on Asia-Europe routes, along with Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming Marine Transportation as global partners. The grouping will also change its name to the Premier Alliance from next month. The only grouping remaining intact come February 1, the Ocean Alliance, made up of COSCO, OOCL, CMA CGM and Evergreen, will also be the one with the largest market share and widest market coverage this year, according to analysis from Linerlytica, an Asia-based container shipping consultancy.

The time charter market is correspondingly busy as operators shuffle their pieces on the board. Meanwhile the fleet continued its remorseless growth. As of mid-January, consultancy Alphaliner reported 7,226 active containerships comprising 31.65m teu. Out of these, 6,327 ships are fully cellular; these ships have combined capacity of 31.23m teu. The fleet has grown at approximately one ship per day since 2023 and the orders keep coming with CMA CGM and Cardiff Marine leading the newbuilding charge so far this year. In a deglobalised world of trade blocs, near-abroads and conflict zones, what is the right size ship to build? And with a global shipping regulator attempting to drive one size fits all emissions rules, what is the right fuel choice? Owners need all the wisdom and intuition of the Chinese zodiac’s snake to know the answers to those questions.

The post Containers: Snakes and ladders appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

For those born in the Year of the Ox, such as 1949, the year that Chairman Mao declared the Chinese republic, the coming Year of the Snake is forecast to be a year of stability and productivity. President Xi would presumably settle for that. The dry bulk freight market however has been warned of zero growth in 2025 as the ever growing series of Chinese economic stimulus packages fail to light a fire under growth in the Middle Kingdom and new ships begin to grow the fleet more quickly.

Meanwhile, bulker operators are suffering a case of snakebite in January as activity slithers away with the Lunar New Year looming. The biggest ships on the biggest volume markets are the most affected. Capesize day rates of $1,279 per day from Australia to China were 82% lower on January 24 than on December 24. On the Brazil to China route, rates were off by only 29% to $7,934 between the same dates.

Capesizes are reportedly carrying more bauxite than coal these days, and even cold weather in Europe has only weakly supported the transatlantic voyage carrying coal from Bolivar to Rotterdam. Rates were reported at $9.88 per tonne, or $15,502 per day on January 24, having been as high as $24,340 a week earlier after averaging $17,000 per day in December and $25,700 a day for calendar 2024.

The Baltic Exchange 5TC capesize average for January so far is $10,949 which is the lowest number since Lunar New Year affected January and February 2023 which were respectively $9,065 and $3,749 per day.

Panamaxes carry more coal than capesizes, but their regular coal voyage, a round trip from South China to Indonesia and back, has displayed a sickly pallor for months now. In January the chart showed a further decline, with rates falling 45% to a below opex $2,872 compared to $5,175 just 30 days earlier. Ships sailing from China to the west coast of North America were being fixed at $5,614 on January 24, down 6% over 30 days, while those sailing from China to Europe were rated at $3,525, down 25% over 30 days.

Panamaxes outbound from Mississippi to North China via Panama were rated at a more robust $14,357 on January 24, having trickled down by 7% since December 24. Those sailing from Santos to North China via Panama were rated at $7,936 on January 24, down 21% on the month. This case of January blues extended to the Atlantic. North Atlantic round voyages were down $33% at $6,975 while trips out to Asia were down 11% at $12,906.

The geared bulk carriers fared no better in January with rates falling on every route. The worst offender was the South China to Indonesia round voyage. Earnings for an ultramax bulker on this voyage fell 47% over 30 days to a clammy $5,614 on January 24.

The North China – Australia round voyage lost 29% to sit at a wheezy $6,581 per day on an ultramax. The voyage out from the Indian ocean to Asia lost 36%, lolling at $7,488 on January 24. The Baltic Exchange 63 dwt time charter average was in bed with the chills at $8,078 on January 24, down 31% from $11,671 a month earlier.

Even the handysize market was in search of a remedy to collapsing freight rates with the HS7TC average down 28% at $7,406 on January 24. The US Gulf to Europe voyage was least affected, with a 12% reduction in day rates to $10,550, though rates on the reverse rate were off by 30% at $5,714 per day. The Southeast Asia to Australasia round voyage was hardest hit, falling 35% to 6,694. The China to US west coast rate was off by a third in a month at $6,700 per day.

Every undergraduate can tell you that drinking a case of snakebite will make you ill. The question is, how long will the hangover last? Send your hangover remedy recipes on a postcard to Xi Jinping, Beijing, China. A DJ Trump of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA, has already sent a list of demands to add to the sanctions declared by the previous tenant of his home.

These will only add to Xi’s headache. His reaction will go a long way to determining the destiny of the dry bulk freight market in the Year of the Snake.

The post Dry cargo: A case of snakebite appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

You can take your pick of a wide variety of opinions about what Trump 2.0 will do to the global oil markets, but it’s a safe bet that nearly all those opinions amount to one effect: disruption. The US president has already dropped a heavy hint to Saudi Arabia to produce more crude oil to cut prices. Trump knows this will pressurise Russia, which relies on hydrocarbon earnings to fund its invasion of Ukraine. In his first term, Trump’s first foreign visit was to Riyadh and he sees the House of Saud as a key partner.

Maybe he hopes the US will supplant Russia in the OPEC+ global oil cartel. That would fit his America First view of foreign policy and support his campaign promise to not only “drill baby drill” but to export more US energy.

More US exports probably means more long-haul crude oil trade in the long-term. In the here and now, the first few weeks of 2025 ushered firmer VLCC activity. It looks like about 900 laden voyages will begin this month compared to 780 in December. Maybe charterers were booking cargoes before the Lunar New Year holiday interrupts. So far this month, average VLCC earnings as reported by the Baltic Exchange are up 44%, reading $36,265 on January 26 compared to $25,220 on December 24, the last reporting day of 2024. On West Africa to China voyages, rates rose 30% to $35,639. On Middle East to Singapore voyages, rates rose 40% to $31,611. On US to China voyages, VLCC day rates rose 66% in a month to $44,003 on January 26 but they had peaked earlier in the month at $55,519 on January 17. That equals just over $10m in gross hire for the maximum 35 day voyage.

Assume opex of $10,000 a day, or a total of $350,000 for the voyage and a tidy operating profit will ensure a happy Lunar New Year for the small number of lucky owners who had ships in the right place at the right time.

Suezmax earnings were no less exciting in January. Daily TCEs on the West Africa to UK/Continent suezmax voyage began the year at $22,400 per day, peaked at $32,492 on January 17, then declined to $27,479 on January 24. On the Middle East to Med voyage, rates began the year at a firm $37,566 and rose to a peak of $48,133 on January 20 before subsiding to $43,679 on the 24th. On the new Guyana to ARA voyage, rates started 2025 at $23,410 per day, topping $28,000 a day mid-month before returning to $23,575 on January 24.

The Baltic Exchange aframax A6 average began the year at $29,272 and struggled all month, sitting at $24,133 by January 24. It was not all red ink: on Kuwait to Singapore voyages, daily TCEs added 10%, rising to $31,709. However, rates were off 7% on Southeast Asia to east coast Australia voyages at $21,517 per day on January 24. The real damage was done in the Atlantic and North Sea. US Gulf-ARA voyage rates fell 39% to $22,291. North Sea to Germany rates slumped 53% to $21,277 while North Sea to UK rates fared less badly, down 4% to $27,677. The German economy is clearly in a difficult place. The US cavalry is not coming to the rescue either – it is mounting up for a charge on Greenland.

The big aframax story however is the new US sanctions which are already causing Indian and Chinese buyers to switch from Russian suppliers as they try to toe the line. The benefit may not accrue to ‘clean skin’ aframax owners; if buyers switch from Russian to Atlantic basin suppliers, cargoes may arrive on larger ships. Around two thirds of Russia’s 2024 crude oil exports went on aframaxes (about 1,600 voyages) compared to only one third of US exports which were more evenly split between VLCCs, suezmaxes and aframaxes / LR2s (around 500 each). Around 1,400 VLCCs loaded Saudi crude last year, over 80% of the seaborne total with only small numbers of suezmax and aframax cargoes making up the balance. Maybe 2025 will be not only the year of the snake but the year of the VLCC.

The global oil products markets are adjusting to the advent of the massive 650,000 barrels per day Dangote refinery in Nigeria.

Already, product tanker arrivals at Nigeria are down, from 90 in January 2023 to 42 in the first three weeks of 2024, with the monthly total likely to be around 50 to 55 ships. The Atlantic product tanker markets have been more than usually volatile in January – Dangote may be implicated.

So far, daily TCEs on ARA-WAF voyages are holding up. For panamaxes, the rate was $20,068 on January 1 and $20,803 on January 24, having dipped below $17,000 on January 16. For MRs, the rate was actually up 30% from $14,827 on December 24, the last reporting day of last year, to $23,566 on January 24, via a low of $12,869 on January 8 and a high of $26,573 on January 20. Such volatility perhaps reflects changing market conditions in West Africa.

In other Atlantic basin markets, the benchmark MR voyage from the USG to ARA lost 47% over the month from December 24 to January 24, falling from $21,082 to $11,093, but was as low as $6,510 on January 7. On the reverse, gasoline-laden voyage, rates zoomed upward 76% over the month to January 24, from $10,134 to $17,803, via a low of $6,418 on January 7 and a high of $21,520 on January 21. MR tanker sized exports from the USG to the east coast of South America were attracting $31,879 per day just before Christmas but only $18,656 on January 24, a fall of 41%. On the US Gulf-Caribs voyage, rates fell from $28,406 on December 24 to a measly $6,612 on January 9, then recovered to $26,573 on January 15, only to relapse to $9,762 on January 23.

Then came a Friday feeling and a bump up to $12,861.

Looking east, the LR2 benchmark voyage from Saudi Arabia to Japan ended 2024 on an acceptable $17,333 per day but quickly scrubbed up to a luminous $40,324 on January 15 only to stumble to $27,776 on January 24. The parallel LR1 voyage ended 2024 at $12,036 but increased to a peak of $26,414 on January 15 before slipping back to $16,245 on the 24th.

As India’s refineries absorbed the new sanctions reality, day rates from Jamnagar to Chiba for 35,000 tonne cargoes were 29% lower on January 24, at a slovenly $8,074 per day, compared to a smarter $11,339 one month earlier and a suave $13,201 on January 17.

South Korea’s refiners enjoyed January, with good export volumes supporting freight rates. On the voyage to the US west coast, MR tanker day rates were up 19% on January 24 compared to December 24, at $23,901, while on the voyage to Singapore they were up 44% at $12,873.

Overall, the Baltic Exchange Clean Tanker Index was up 16% at 725 points on January 24 compared to 625 points on December 24

The post Tankers: Year of the VLCC? appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The post January 2025 Review appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

The post The news distillery appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

Energy News Beat

As shipping slithers somewhat apprehensively into the Year of the Snake, analysts reckon tankers – whether hauling gas or oil – are best placed to see an uptick in fortunes.

The Lunar New Year is not starting too well with many sectors struggling to break even in January.

The cross-sector ClarkSea Index, a weighted barometer covering all shipping segments, eased back by 8% last Friday to $21,128 a day, the lowest level for more than a year and with the average in 2025 so far down by 10% year-on-year, though still up 13% on the 10-year trend.

One analyst to have stuck his neck on the line with his predictions is Dr Adam Kent, the head of Maritime Strategies International (MSI), who gave delegates attending last week’s Marine Money event in London his take on where each segment is in terms of the cycle, with Kent suggesting LNG, currently experiencing record lows, is best placed for an upswing.

The average spot rate assessment for a 174,000 cu m ship fell by 31% to $14,000 a day as of last Friday, while the equivalent rate for a 145,000 cu m steam turbine unit now stands at just $2,500 a day, down 29% week-on-week. Protracted weakness, especially for older steam turbine units, is seeing more vintage gas tankers head for demolition, while many owners are contemplating lay-ups as a record volume of newbuilds readies to leave Asian drydocks.

Has the sector nearly bottomed out, and will it post a solid upswing, as Kent has forecast? Splash Extra sought the views of other shipping analysts to pick out improving segments to watch out for in the Year of the Snake.

“Ethane and clean ammonia trade should increase too, keeping new orders for LPG vessels high,” Rosano said.

Looking closely at the MSI slide above, Mark Williams, the founder of UK consultancy Shipping Strategy, argued that oil tankers are nearer a cyclical upswing than the graphic suggests.

Williams placed his tanker optimism down to US overtures towards Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump’s plans to increase oil production, along with more Atlantic basin oil production. At the same time, Williams pointed out more tankers are turning 25 in the next few years and the fleet will shrink even as tonne-miles – if not overall tonnes – could grow.

“Tanker freight markets work on fine margins of utilisation – there is upside potential,” Williams said.

Holding similar views is Ralph Leszczynski, the head of research and consultancy at Banchero Costa, who admitted he is concerned about the “really scary” LNG orderbook, which will see more than 100 newbuildings deliver this year alone, resulting in a net fleet capacity increase of 13% year-on-year.

“I highly doubt at this point that there will be enough extra cargoes on the market and/or sufficient increase in tonne-miles to absorb all of these new vessels. Hence the supply-demand balance for LNG is actually likely to get worse rather than better this year,” Leszczynski said, who then went on, like Williams, to express greater confidence in crude tankers, especially VLCCs.

Unlike LNG, the crude tanker orderbook is very modest with Banchero Costa data showing the VLCC fleet is expected to see zero growth this year, and the aframax fleet will expand by only 1%, whilst the shadow fleet, Leszczynski argued, will increasingly struggle under harsher sanctions and controls.

“The Trump government will encourage more US crude exports, and will probably try to strong-arm both Europe as well as China to buy more from the USA at the expense of Russia and Iran, which is beneficial for tonne-miles,” Leszczynski predicted, dismissing upswing prospects for containerships and dry bulk.

Splash Extra contacted more than 20 analysts for their Snake shipping forecasts. However, with today’s incredibly volatile markets and uncertain geopolitical situation, most experts were not willing to stick their necks out.

One analyst who wished not to be named confided that with “Trump 2.0” there are so many fast and unexpected moving parts that the smart play was to adopt famous maritime economist Martin Stopford’s view of never giving a forecast.

Most shipping sectors are expected to see quieter activity levels in the coming days due to the Lunar New Year holidays. Typically, container shipping is most affected followed by dry bulk and to an extent tankers, though over the years, there have been exceptions. In 2024, dry bulk rates and tanker rates both jumped at the onset of the holiday while containers drifted downwards after a short squeeze at the start of the Red Sea diversions.

Across all three sectors this year, freight rates have been on an easing trend heading into Lunar New Year, suggesting further downside from here may be limited. Normally the post-New Year period sees the beginning of a resurgence in dry bulk, somewhat of the status quo for tankers and the start of seasonal softness for containers.

The post Tankers best placed in the Year of the Snake appeared first on Energy News Beat.