公司董事会主席和CEO对成品油运行业的描述：
Just as the recovery of global economies was gradually picking-up since the outbreak of Omicron, the war in the Ukraine created new challenges and opportunities which have been positive for our sector and the Company. Improving demand for refined petroleum products and low global inventories have been met by the effects of the war which has resulted in market dislocation, arbitrage opportunities, ton-mile expansion and higher charter rates for product tankers starting in March. After a prolonged, difficult period, we began to see a recovery of the sector with healthier rates that initially occurred in the Atlantic basin. Furthermore, over the last month, most of the Pacific basin has also shown significant improvement. In order to address high demand for transportation fuels, many refineries, including those located in the U.S. Gulf Coast, are running at high utilization and achieving near-record crack spreads. Greater global demand of diesel/gasoil, especially from Europe and Latin America, is competing with rising demand of jet fuel and gasoline as summer travel unfolds in the northern hemisphere, further stressing tight inventory positions. Increasing cargoes from U.S., Middle East and certain Asian refineries to end markets reflect expanding ton-mile voyages. This situation has been further compounded by the closure of older, less efficient refineries, primarily located in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OECD).
The recent dramatic improvement in demand for product tankers is further supported by long-term fundamentals. Despite recent headwinds of slowing economic activity, including the impact of Covid-19 on China, rising inflation and tightening monetary policies, we believe the chartering environment should remain favourable for the near-term given demand for refined products. Reasonable economic activity is supported by data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which still forecasts annual global GDP growth of 3.6% for this year and 2023. A leading research firm recently estimated that seaborne trade of refined products would grow 4% to 1.05 billion tons in 2022. The vessel supply outlook continues to look very positive with little new ordering of product tankers. We estimate that annual net supply growth for MR’s should be approximately 2% over the next two years.
From a risk/return standpoint, we continue to employ a mixed chartering strategy of short-term time and spot charters on a staggered basis to a diverse customer base. Three of our MR’s are currently trading spot and the remaining two tankers are under time charters. We have chosen not to pursue any Russian cargoes. With improving market conditions, we are pleased to report that as of May 13, 2022, 67% of our available days for the second quarter were booked at an average estimated daily TCE of $27,900. While our optimism for the charter market has improved, the uncertainties surrounding the global economy and the impact of the war as well as other geo-political events, temper our enthusiasm.