Crude Carriers News

Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA diverted two crude cargoes set to discharge at Cuba's Matanzas terminal, Refinitiv Eikon data and company documents showed on Tuesday, as a fire that devastated 40% of the island's main storage facility continued for a fifth day.Lightning on Friday set one crude storage tank at the 2.4-million-barrel facility ablaze, later spreading to three others, resulting in massive power outages.As most of Venezuela's oil shipments to Cuba typically go to…

International Seaways, one of the world's oil largest tanker operators, petroleum products, has completed the previously announced merger with Diamond S Shipping Inc. The combined company will continue to operate as International Seaways and trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol INSW. International Seaways expects to achieve cost synergies in excess of $23 million and revenue synergies of $9 million, which are expected to be fully realizable within 2022."Following the completion of the merger…

Belgian tanker operator Euronav said Tuesday it had entered into a sale and leaseback agreement for the very large crude carrier Newton with China's Taiping & Sinopec Financial Leasing Ltd Co. The VLCC was sold for $36 million."The transaction produced a capital gain of about $2.4 million. After repayment of the existing debt, the transaction generated $19 million free cash," Euronav said.The company has now leased back the 2009-built, 307,284 DWT VLCC under a 36-month bareboat contract at an average rate of $22,500 per day.

The recovery of the global oil tanker market will be slow and gradual. We have forecast this many times during 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on past, present and future oil consumption.On 8 December, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that the global consumption of oil will reach 98.2 million barrels per day (m b/p) in 2021, a 6.3% rise, 5.8m b/d on average, compared with the same figure in 2020. The good news is quickly soured, however, as the 2021-level will fall short of the 2019 oil demand by 3 million barrels per day.

Venezuela has resumed direct shipments of oil to China after U.S. sanctions sent the trade underground for more than a year, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel-tracking data and internal documents from state company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).Chinese state companies China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and PetroChina - long among PDVSA's top customers - stopped loading crude and fuel at Venezuelan ports in August 2019 after Washington extended its sanctions on PDVSA to include any companies trading with the Venezuelan state firm.The imposition of the sanctions was part of a push by the Trump administration to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro…

Oslo-listed  Klaveness Combination Carriers  (“KCC”) has taken delivery of the MV Bangus carrier from New Yangzi Shipyard in China. KCC Tuesday said Tuesday the MV Bangus was the fifth of in total eight contracted CLEANBU combination carriers."The CLEANBUs are unique vessels both in terms of design, their unprecedented environmental performance, operational and technical efficiency. These vessels have up to 40 lower CO2 emissions per ton mile transported cargo compared to standard vessels…

Oslo-listed ADS Crude Carriers has signed a memorandum of agreement to sell the Very Large Crude Carrier ADS Serenade.ADS said Tuesday the vessel would be sold for $25.5 million. The company did not say who the buyer was."The vessel is expected to be delivered to the new owners before the end of October," ADS Crude Carriers said.The ADS Serenade is one of three Japan-built sister VLCCs delivered to the company in 2018. It was built in 2002 by Hitachi Zosen Corporation.The 329…

Royal Dutch Shell has provisionally booked a tanker to load a crude cargo at Libya's Zueitina terminal on Oct. 3, potentially the first since January at the recently reopened port.The Amoureux tanker is expected to load a 1 million barrel cargo and then discharge in Singapore on Oct. 22, Refinitiv Eikon shipping data showed.Shell declined to comment on the booking.Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) lifted force majeure on crude loadings at the port on Sept. 22.The north African country has seen an uptick in export activity this week following the easing of the blockade imposed by eastern forces in January, which the NOC said cost the country around $10 billion in lost revenue.The Delta Hellas oil tanker loaded a 1 million barrel crude cargo for Unipec…

Belgian tanker operator Euronav reported record-high second-quarter earnings on Thursday but warned that floating storage demand had eased sooner than it expected.The company, which operates shipping and storage of crude oil, benefited from soaring demand for oil storage at sea as buyers struggled to find storage space on land for surplus crude during a global economic slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic.“Tanker markets continued to deliver strong earnings throughout Q2 and into the early part of the third quarter", Chief Executive Hugo De Stoop said in a statement, but noted floating sto

The United States sent a shipment of crude to Saudi Arabia in June, data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed on Wednesday, in what appears to be the first such delivery since the U.S. ban on crude exports ended in 2015.The United States shipped about 550,000 barrels, or 18,300 barrels per day (bpd), of crude to Saudi Arabia in June, U.S. Census data shows. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has no recorded instances of a U.S. crude shipment to Saudi Arabia.U.S. Census data shows a miniscule 1,000-barrel shipment to Saudi Arabia in 2002.

The family that owns beleaguered Singaporean oil trader Hin Leong Trading (HLT) is seeking to block creditor OCBC's request to appoint overseers for the family's Xihe Holdings and four other subsidiaries to recoup its debt.Oversea Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) applied last week for the Singapore High Court to appoint judicial managers over Xihe, owned by the family of Hin Leong founder Lim Oon Kuin, known as O.K. Lim.Kenny Lim Oon Cheng, Xihe Holdings interim chief executive, said…

Asia will import record volumes of U.S. crude oil this month, with China leading the way, but the surge is more likely a short-term blip rather than a sustained trend. A total of 57.7 million barrels of U.S. crude is expected to land in Asia in July, equivalent to about 1.86 million barrels per day (bpd), according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv. This figure is subject to revision as some cargoes expected to discharge by the end of the month may be delayed…

Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) on Sunday accused the United Arab Emirates of instructing eastern forces in Libya's civil war to reimpose a blockade of oil exports after the departure of a first tanker in six months.The UAE, along with Russia and Egypt, supports the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar, which on Saturday said the blockade would continue despite it having let a tanker load with oil from storage."NOC has been informed that the instructions to shut down production were given to (the LNA) by the United Arab Emirates," it said in a statement, resuming force majeure on all oil exports.There was no immediate…