Ton Mile Trader

Crude
VLCC Ag/East: ws 70 ($53k/day)
Suezmax Wafr/Usac: ws 95 ($33k/day)
Turkish Straits Delays: 3.5 n / 3.5 s - bad weather has increased delays

Not much new here in the world of crude tankers. AG/East still fetches about ws 70 as we have seen about 27 December loaders fixed. It was last year at this time that rates began to jump rather than just rise – though this time around there just doesn’t seem be any sort potential energy that could blast us into the ws 100 and beyond range. Anything could happen, but it seems the personality of the current market is not all that volatile.

Crude is up 2% while FRO is up 8% in pre market. Though Venezuela and some of the more agitatable members of the Cartel are calling for cuts to be agreed/announced at the Nov 29^th Cairo meeting, OPEC President Khelil of Algeria has said it is too soon to decide on another production cut. With gasoline prices as low as $1.64 in Houston, it appears OPEC has the ‘tiger by the tail.’ I wish them well.

Crude FFAs have been quiet – which is no surprise for a Monday in a holiday week (Thanksgiving in US on Thursday). TD3 Dec sits at about Friday’s close of 70 – implying the crystal ball crowd doesn’t see much changing over the next few weeks. Little brother TD11 has traded a few thousand tons, losing 4 points on the Dec contract to 135.

Clean
37k Cont/Usac: ws 180 ($16.5k/day)
38k Caribs/Usac: ws 165 ($14k/day)
55kt Ag/East: ws 222.5 ($37k/day)

Atlantic basin clean remains the same. Fixtures are still getting done – yet rates sit at last done levels. In the East, rates remain under pressure, although it seems recent declines have slowed to almost a standstill. The ATS report reminds us this morning of falling products prices in Europe and Asia – calling Asian naphtha demand from petrochemical companies “non-existent.”

TC2 paper remains quiet, though Dec still sits at about 190 – approx 10 point higher than spot. Eastern paper has been quiet, though we have seen TC5 Dec trade down 4 points to 192. With the physical market suffering from minimized demand woes, this is no surprise.