Ins and Outs of Tanker Spot Rate Analysis Revealed

Marine Transport Advisors, McQuilling Services, explain important elements of their forecasting process when they develop the final forecast set out in their recent '2014-2018 Tanker Market Outlook' analysis.

The Outlook is synthesized from the following six components:

• Quantitative Modeling
• Sensitivity (reference, high and  low cases)
• Experiential Adjustments
• Tonnage Supply & Demand Bias (Capacity index)
• Previous Outlook & Market Performance
• Seasonality

Interestingly, of four primary observations regarding vessels that transport crude and dirty products it was observed that the historically strong relationship between monthly OPEC production and VLCC monthly average spot rates between 2005 and 2010 had disappeared.  This is because this relationship did not consider changes in tonnage supply which have a significant effect on rates in the VLCC sector.

Since the inception of this process, McQuilling claim it has proven to be a reasonably predictive gauge of spot market freight rates.  Over the last 16 market forecasting cycles, we produced forecasts that were within +/-10% of actual levels observed nine times.  We were within +/-30% of actual market levels in 13 cycles. 

Further information: https://www.mcquilling.com/