34 MR Tankers Booked to Ship European Gasoline Across the Atlantic, Hits 10 Month High

Stena Conquest, a 47k DWT medium range tanker bought by Stena in 2008. Image: Stena

(Bloomberg) — The flow of European gasoline to the U.S. is poised to advance to the highest in almost 10 months, according to a survey of people directly involved in arranging cargoes.

Traders booked or plan to book 34 Medium-Range tankers, each hauling about 37,000 metric tons of the fuel, for loading in the next two weeks, according to the Bloomberg News survey of five shipbrokers and a trader yesterday and today. That compares with 21 a week ago and would be the most since Oct. 27.

Of the 34 charters, 18 were already organized and 16 are likely to happen, according to the survey. There are 30 MR tankers that can load the gasoline, compared with 36 last week.

The survey is based on the industry’s so-called TC2 trade, a designation for cargoes to New York from Rotterdam that’s published by the Baltic Exchange, the London-based shipping bourse. Freight costs on the route climbed for an eighth consecutive session yesterday, advancing 5 percent to 124.38 Worldscale points, according to the exchange.

The rate means costs are 24.38 percent higher than a nominal dollars-per-ton flat rate assigned to the route from January by the Worldscale Association.

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