Good years ahead
Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN) chief executive Nikolas Tsakos says his company expects the currently healthy tanker rates to continue well into 2017.
Captain Panagiotis Tsakos (left), his son Nikolaos (right) and grandson Panagiotis.
But the good times will only remain in place as long as tanker owners “don’t shoot ourselves in the foot” by overbuilding, he told TradeWinds on the sidelines of the Capital Link Invest in Shipping Conference in New York.
“We are looking for a very strong 2015, a very strong 2016,” Tsakos said.
He discussed the market prospects as he prepared to head to the Connecticut Maritime Association (CMA)’s Shipping 2015 conference in nearby Stamford, where his father, Greek shipowner Captain Panagiotis Tsakos, will be named commodore later this week. (Nikolas Tsakos says his 12-year-old son, also named Panagiotis, will receive the famous hat on behalf of his grandfather.)
TEN, a New York-listed tanker owner backed by the commodore-elect’s Tsakos Shipping & Trading, expects another jump in charters for floating storage to play a role in a strengthening the tanker market.
“We are coming to a level that the onshore storage is becoming limited and expensive, so more and more ships are going to be playing a role,” said Nikolas Tsakos, who is also chairman of Intertanko, the tanker owner industry group.
Based in Athens, TEN owns 64 crude tankers, products tankers, LNG carriers, including newbuildings.
source:www.tradewindsnews.com
