Hellenic tanker owners have reiterated their leading position in terms of their share of the total tanker fleet, controlling 18% of the current world fleet and 17% of the outstanding tanker orderbook, said a report by Gibsons. “Hellas’ domination is understated when you consider listings on both the New York and London stock markets which would be hidden as US and UK companies respectively. To put this in greater perspective, 46% of the UK domicile fleet is controlled by “London” Greeks” said the London-based shipbroker.
Overall, 50% of the tanker fleet is controlled by just six nations in deadweight terms. China may not be in these nations, but according to Gibson this is about to change. the reason is that Chinese owners hold the second place of the current tanker orderbook, with newbuilding orders surpassing the actual existing fleet. This means that by 2012, China will earn a top five spot in tanker ownership. The research note also said that Japanese and Norwegians still feature strongly, however they remain some distance from the Greek’s pole position. In terms of tanker tonnage, the US claims 4th place despite having a very small registered fleet under the national flag. This indicates the dominance of the US in the financial sector. German domicile owners still control 5% of the existing fleet but are under increasing pressure as the KG system comes to terms with the recession. As a result of many companies going public in recent years, the stock market has also played a major part in the change of the ownership structure, with 31% of the fleet now controlled by listed companies.
Meanwhile, with the tanker market on a rebound mode, it is worth providing some useful insight from Nikolas Tsakos, CEO of NY-listed Tsakos Energy Navigation. In recent quotes by Bloomberg, he said that the market is of course far away from the hundreds of thousands of dollars a day experienced just 24 months ago, but at least rates are easily covering their operating expenses and also allow profitability to be maintained. According to Mr. Tsakos this means that the sector has weathered the storm, with the worst now behind.
In terms of the crude market, he mentioned that there is a strong recovery, as a result of delays caused by new torments in the Mediterranean and bad weather in the Bosphorus Strait. These factors have brought rates back up from something like $10,000 in September to about $35,000 today. As for products, there is better move in trading to the East, but rising inventories, mainly of distillates and gasoline are translated to less and less demand  from the Western Europe market, as well as the markets of North America and the Far East.
In its latest research report, Charles R. Weber said that a swift recovery in oil demand in the United States – which continues to consume approximately four times as much oil as China, the world’s second largest consumer – would contribute heavily to a recovery in oil demand in short term, particularly given the high level of global oil inventories. “Much has been noted about the ability of China and India to support the tanker markets going forward, and this is indeed not to be discounted; however, given the disparity between demand in those countries and that in the United States, coupled with a growing world tanker fleet, the continued importance of US markets is certainly not to be discounted either” concluded CRWeber.

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