The first quarter was actually a pretty good quarter for Swedish Concordia Maritime, which is controlled by the major Swedish Stena shipping group, but the second quarter will not be easy and the product tanker market might not be as good for the carrier as it has been in the past. Reasons for this include overcapacity, uncertainty about the global economy and growing competition from other carriers, says Concordia Maritime CEO Kim Ullman in an interview with ShippingWatch.

"We had a good start this year because of the high rates - especially for the product tankers that switched to sailing with "dirty" products. The second quarter will be much worse, but we believe in the general trend that demand for product tanker will increase by 5 percent this year. There's nothing new about the rising demand, but the growth in supply, on the other hand, is new. The supply has grown in the last two years and now one has to be more lucky. But we're not going to see as good a market as we did in 2007 or 2004, as too many ships have been ordered."