The cost of delivering Middle East crude to Asia, the world's busiest route for supertankers, dropped for a third session in London as oil companies delay hiring the ships they need to collect next month's cargoes.
Shipping costs on the Saudi Arabia to Japan route fell 2 per cent to 49.92 Worldscale points, according to the London- based Baltic Exchange. Rental income for ships on the voyage fell 3.4 per cent to US$32,484 a day. They advanced 41 per cent last week, the most since January.
'Charterers are holding back in the hope of cooling down the present trend,' Oslo-based Fearnley Consultants A/S said in a report yesterday. With about 90 per cent of next month's rentals still to be concluded, it 'remains to be seen whether they will succeed', it said.
Demand for vessels should advance in the next several days after Saudi Arabia provided a loading schedule for some of the two million-barrel consignments to collect cargoes next month, Nikos Varvaropoulos, an official at Optima Shipbrokers Ltd in Athens, said yesterday.
The surplus of vessels competing for cargoes shrank to 10 per cent from 15 per cent a week ago and 45 per cent two weeks ago, according to a Bloomberg News survey of ship brokers, owners, a derivatives broker and a trader.
Worldscale points are a percentage of a nominal rate, or flat rate, for more than 320,000 specific routes. Flat rates for every voyage, quoted in US dollars a ton, are revised annually by the Worldscale Association in London to reflect changing fuel costs, port tariffs and exchange rates.
Each flat rate assessment gives owners and oil companies a starting point for negotiating hire rates without having to calculate the value of each deal from scratch.
Shipping costs on the Saudi Arabia to Japan route fell 2 per cent to 49.92 Worldscale points, according to the London- based Baltic Exchange. Rental income for ships on the voyage fell 3.4 per cent to US$32,484 a day. They advanced 41 per cent last week, the most since January.
'Charterers are holding back in the hope of cooling down the present trend,' Oslo-based Fearnley Consultants A/S said in a report yesterday. With about 90 per cent of next month's rentals still to be concluded, it 'remains to be seen whether they will succeed', it said.
Demand for vessels should advance in the next several days after Saudi Arabia provided a loading schedule for some of the two million-barrel consignments to collect cargoes next month, Nikos Varvaropoulos, an official at Optima Shipbrokers Ltd in Athens, said yesterday.
The surplus of vessels competing for cargoes shrank to 10 per cent from 15 per cent a week ago and 45 per cent two weeks ago, according to a Bloomberg News survey of ship brokers, owners, a derivatives broker and a trader.
Worldscale points are a percentage of a nominal rate, or flat rate, for more than 320,000 specific routes. Flat rates for every voyage, quoted in US dollars a ton, are revised annually by the Worldscale Association in London to reflect changing fuel costs, port tariffs and exchange rates.
Each flat rate assessment gives owners and oil companies a starting point for negotiating hire rates without having to calculate the value of each deal from scratch.