Earnings from product tankers have grown by an average of 300% since Russia invaded Ukraine, and with the upcoming EU sanctions against the import of Russian oil, the demand for product tankers will grow even more.

On the other hand, productivity will fall, because the market is set to become more fragmented than it is now, predicts Danmarks Skibskredit in its half-yearly report on the shipping market.

”As with the market for crude oil, refined products from Russia will increasingly be shipped to Asia, while Europe will import more from the Middle East, the USA and Asia. In other words, the demand for product tankers will be driven to a greater extent by transport over long distances,” the report states.

Longer transport from more shipping ports than today will mean that shipping companies will still have to count on sailing without cargo for more than half of the time at sea.

Last year, 52% of product tankers were without cargo while at sea according to Danmarks Skibskredit, and that is still the case.

”Although demand has improved markedly since then, ballast voyages still make up a large part of the time at sea. In the third quarter of 2022, ballast voyages accounted for 51% of the time at sea,” says Danmarks Skibskredit.

In the third quarter, around a fifth of the product tankers returned to the same port they came from in order to reload. There is a small increase compared to 2019, when 16% of the ships sailed empty back to their port of departure.

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