Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd

Refinery margins have fallen throughout most of the world. US Gulf refinery margins for WTI crude lost more than $2 compared to last month’s level.

While the VLCC data is positive, the picture for the crude tanker business remains mixed. This could portray a short-to-medium-term negative outlook.

For the third quarter of 2014, the charter hire expense increased $1.1 million to $32.9 million, from $31.9 million in the year ago quarter.

Continued from Part 3 The importance of capacity Capacity, in a commoditized industry like shipping, is an important metric that directly impacts companies’ top line, or revenue performance. When capacity grows faster than demand, competition will rise among individual shipping firms as they try to use idle ships and cover fixed costs. This will lower day […]

Newbuild VLCC (very large crude carrier) prices rose in May 2017, and this is the first time we’ve seen a rise in prices this year.

Industry analysts suggest that investors should avoid Frontline because of the bankruptcy risk. Currently, the company is facing bankruptcy. This is led by the $190 million bond that’s due in April 2015.

Since secondhand vessels can be delivered within a few months, they tend to reflect industry participants’ expectations for medium-term fundamentals and rates, unlike newbuilds, for which two years of delivery time is mandatory.

Weekly vessel values have been on the rise, with positive week-over-week and significant year-over-year growth.

China (FXI) released its key economic data for June—import and export data, auto sales data, and the manufacturing index.

China, which has the second-largest economy in the world, has a significant impact on the crude tanker industry.

On March 22, 2018, the average bunker fuel price was $423 per ton—compared to $413 per ton on March 15.

Euronav had a liquidity of $754 million at the end of the fourth quarter. Euronav has been working to strengthen its liquidity position.

China (FXI) released key economic data for December 2017—import and export data, auto sales data, and the manufacturing index.

Newbuild vessel prices fell in March 2017. We saw in our last month’s series that newbuild vessel prices also fell in February.

According to the Weber Weekly Report, VLCC rates on the benchmark route rose from $32,439 per day on April 13, 2017, to $38,884 per day on April 21, 2017.

Nordic American Tankers has a long history of paying dividends—77 consecutive quarters to date. It declared a cash dividend of $0.26 per share on October 27.

Nordic American Tankers’ (NAT) dividend yield has ranged from 6.3%–10.36% in the past four quarters. NAT had a dividend yield of 14.17% as of February 11, 2016, one of the highest dividend yields in the industry.

On July 1, the Baltic Dirty Tanker Index was at 952 points, the highest in July. Then the index took a free fall and hit 752 points on July 31 and 673 on August 12.

Vessel operating expenses mainly include crewing, repair and maintenance, and insurance expense, but not fuel cost (DBO).

Five-year VLCC prices in February increased to $80.9 million from $80.7 million in January. Ten-year VLCC prices fell to $52.2 million from $52.8 million.