The global tonne-mile demand for crude oil tankers have tumbled 5 percent last year compared to the year earlier due to the global oil demand downturn caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. The reports are produced by analyst Poten & Partners.
The pandemic has jeopardised the segment causing an unexpected surge and downfall in tonne-miles per day in 2020. Furthermore, the tonne-mile per day in the Scandinavia/Baltic to China Sea route surged 362m tonne-mile per day (tmpd) in 2019 to 843m tmpd.
Routes from South America to Asia also witnessed a surge last year to 757m tmpd and another route from west Africa to Asia witnessed a 441m tmpd surge.
Poten & Partners told the media, “The collapse in European oil demand as a result of Covid-19 pushed record volumes of North Sea crude and fuel oil to Asia and the long distance of this voyage amplified the impact on tonne-mile demand. The increases from South America primarily originated in Brazil and Venezuela and were destined for Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea among others. Another growth area was Southeast Asia to the China Sea, which, combined with the earlier point seems to indicate that a significant portion of the crude moved from Brazil and Venezuela was transhipped to Southeast Asia and ultimately ended up in China.”
The reports indicated that the tonne-mile demand record only 11 percent slump in direct route from South America to the China Sea.