Spot freight rates for intra-Asian routes were lower on Thursday, but discharge delays at US Gulf Coast terminals could put a squeeze on tonnage availability in the market, traders said.
Medium-ranged (MR) tankers for May on the TC4 route were pegged at W255 levels, down 5 points from Monday's Asian closing settlement and unchanged from Wednesday's Baltic Exchange close. "We are hearing congestion's in the US and delays are about 3-5 days at the terminals for now, but it could mount and increase as more vessels arrive for discharge," a Singapore-based shipbroker said.
Gasoline flows into the United States have increased, leading to a stockbuild over the past few weeks. Gasoline inventories rose 1.5 million barrels to 196.7 million barrels, bringing them 14.5 million below a year ago, government data showed Wednesday. But a total of about 100,000 tonnes of new tonnage from North Asia has been booked into the US West Coast last week, with at least two provisional bookings seen this week.
"I don't believe we will stop seeing the gasoline arbitrage flow into the US, we should see a steady flow of supplies," a shipbroker said. Rates for Long Range 2 (LR2) tankers were pegged at W140 levels, unchanged from levels seen earlier this week and from Wednesday's Baltic Exchange. Demand for LR2's are beginning to increase from traders looking to take advantage of the opening of the West-East naphtha arbitrage.
Comments
Comments are closed.