Ship owners are having a ball as oil producers, refiners and traders chase crude oil tankers for storage, driving up rates at a time when the global economy and trade are reeling under demand destruction caused by the virus outbreak.
To that extent, it has flipped an industry adage: ‘shipping is the best industry when the economy is on the way up and the worst on the way down’.
Crude oil storage
Crude tankers are increasingly been sought after to store crude oil on the high seas due to a slump in global crude prices and lack of storage space on-land with the hope that the cargo would fetch better prices when the market rebounds.
