“The Chinese, among others, seem to be responding to the lower oil price with additional demand,” notes one tanker executive as Bloomberg reports the number of supertankers sailing toward China’s ports matched a record on Oct. 17 and is still close to that level now. The plunge in price hasenabled China to add 35 million barrels to its inventories in the past three months as the nation fills its strategic petroleum reserves, OPEC said yesterday. Furthermore, though the oil slide is hurting nations from Venezuela to Iran – that depend on energy for revenues – ship owners serving the industry’s benchmark Middle East-to-Asia trade routes are reaping the best returns from charters in yearsas the slump drives down the industry’s single biggest expense. As one analyst notes, “we’ve seen the Chinese buying a lot from the Middle East and that’s really let rates cook.” So it appears the Chinese, in the face of the worst growth and economy in years, are rational enough to buy more at lower prices(as opposed to the buy-more-because-stocks-are-at-all-time-highs Western investors).
A near-record 113 tankers are destined for China…
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 11/15/2014.
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