Canada’s Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Seen Helping Tanker Market

By Isaac Arnsdorf

(Bloomberg) — A pipeline proposed for Canada’s west coast would boost demand for tankers carrying oil exports to the U.S. and Asia, according to E.A. Gibson Shipbrokers Ltd.

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project would create cargoes for 50 very large crude carriers, 120 Suezmax ships and 50 Aframaxes a year as early as 2016, the London-based shipbroker estimated in an e-mailed report today.

“Certainly the pipeline can be viewed with some optimism for the crude tanker market,” Gibson said in the report.

Each VLCC can hold 2 million barrels of crude, twice as much as a Suezmax. Aframaxes carry about 650,000 barrels.

Charter rates for VLCCs on their busiest trade route to Japan from Saudi Arabia rose 0.5 percent to 32.05 industry- standard Worldscale points today, according to the Baltic Exchange, the London-based publisher of shipping costs. The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index, which includes smaller vessels, rose 0.3 percent to 634, exchange figures showed.

Daily losses for VLCCs on the benchmark journey narrowed to $254 from $751, according to the exchange’s assessment, which takes no account of speed cuts aimed at using less fuel, the industry’s biggest expense. The price of marine fuel, or bunkers, rose 1.8 percent to $608.58 a metric ton, figures compiled by Bloomberg from 25 global ports showed.

Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.

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