Russian Oil Tanker Rates Rise as Cargoes Surge

The cost of shipping Russian oil to northwest Europe had the biggest two-day jump since April as traders accelerated bookings of tankers to load at the end of this month, curbing the number available for charter, Bloomberg said on October 17.

Rates for Aframaxes shipping 100,000 metric tons to Wilhelmshaven in Germany from Primorsk on the Baltic Sea climbed 51 percent to 113 Worldscale points, according to the Baltic Exchange, a London-based publisher of freight prices on more than 50 trade routes. That equals daily earnings of $47,168, almost three times what the ships made on Oct. 15.

Traders provisionally booked nine of the vessels to load in the month’s last five days, Timothy Clark, a shipbroker at Riverlake Group in Geneva, said by phone today. The rate of charters was higher than normal, he said. Shipments from the Russian port, the nation’s largest export facility for crude, jumped 25 percent last month and another 9.7 percent in October, according to loading programs obtained by Bloomberg.

“This week, everybody decided to climb in and fix,” Clark said.

Copyright: Bloomberg, 2013