The sliding oil price - and the subsequent abundance of oil in the market - now leads some of the major trading houses, including Greek Trafigura, Vitol and Shell to charter supertankers, numerous industry brokers and sources tell Reuters.
The tanker vessels have been booked on contracts of up to 12 months, and the significant number of these long-term contracts is unusual, according to several sources, which thus speculate that the trading houses plan to use the vessels to store oil until the price starts to rise again. Several of the contracts also stipulate that the ships can be used as floating storage facilities.
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