Asian Aframax Tanker Rates Drop

By Katherine Espina
April 18 (Bloomberg)

The rate to ship 80,000 tons of crude oil on Asian routes fell for a second day as refinery maintenance work cut oil demand, increasing ship supply.

The cost of shipping crude oil on so-called Aframax tankers to Singapore from Kuwait fell 1.1 percent to Worldscale 167.12, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange.

``In Asia, with refinery maintenance upcoming, cargo demand tailed off,'' said U.K-based shipbroker Simpson Spence & Young Ltd. in its latest weekly tanker report.

Refiners Nippon Oil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. are shutting down plants in Asia next month for scheduled maintenance work. In addition, Aframax rates may be tracking the recent fall in the Very Large Crude Carrier market brokers said. VLCCs can transport more than 2 million barrels of oil.

``For the VLCC market, rates last week continued to decline with an ample supply of double-hull tonnage available, few April cargoes left to fix and the market awaiting May cargo stems,'' according to the weekly report by Simpson Spence & Young, the world's largest closely held shipbroker. Refinery maintenance pushed Aframax rates for 80,000 tons of crude oil to Japan from Indonesia lower by 25 points to Worldscale 165, according to the shipbroker.