Shipping Giant Says Shale Boom Ends OPEC’s Power to Crush
- OPEC’s ability to damage tanker demand ‘completely disrupted’
- Biggest tankers hauling shale oil thousands of miles to China
A Euronav tanker.
Photographer: Dana Smillie/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
For decades, the world’s largest oil shippers lived in fear of OPEC turning off the taps and causing demand for their vessels to plunge as cargoes dwindled. That’s not how it’s played out this time, according to one of Europe’s biggest supertanker operators.
The rise of U.S. shale exports, particularly on long-distance routes to China, has propped up demand for tankers that would otherwise have been severely dented by this year’s output cuts led by OPEC, Paddy Rodgers, the chief executive officer of Euronav NV, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Thursday. His company’s fleet can haul more oil than is normally stored at Cushing, Oklahoma, the U.S. trading hub.