Longevity proved to be the overarching theme at this week’s tanker session, which kicked off the Maritime CEO Forum held at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. Charterers will need to fix older ships, posited moderator Sam Chambers, the editorial director at Splash in his opening remarks. It seems inevitable, he said, that the modern tanker fleet will shrink much faster than demand over the next five years. Charterers will have to relax their restrictions on chartering older units, he argued, asking the panel if 20 is the new 15 when it comes to the tanker trades. The hypothesis was widely accepted by the panel of tanker executives, who also agreed with Chambers that scrapping would be largely immaterial over the next five years, also pushing up the average age of the fleet, and forcing the industry to accept older tonnage is here to stay, something that will have a material effect on asset values. Quizzed whether tanker newbuild prices are now too strong – and delivering into 2027/2028, they risk delivering into a weaker market – Henrik Hartzell, senior advisor at Golden Stena Baycrest Tankers, said: “People are hesitant to go ahead and order [product newbuilds] at $52m or $55m. That’s good because we have to stop the newbuildings to get the wanted result.” Mark Cameron, COO of Ardmore Shipping, said he felt newbuild prices are now starting to decline, but conceded delivering into 2028 did not look “sexy”, and he stressed to delegates to make sure refund guarantees are in place before signing any deals with yards. Agreeing that the newbuild price peak was not far off, Alan Hatton, the CEO of Foreguard Shipping, said, “There’s a discrepancy between the price of building a ship now and the input price of that.” Ordering now is risky given how many geopolitical aspects propping up rates are up in the air such as the wars in Ukraine and around the Red Sea, Hatton argued. As with any tanker panel at shipping events around the world, geopolitics formed a plank of discussion, including another impending ‘What if’, namely if Donald Trump wins reelection to the White House this November, something Ardmore’s Cameron said could see the Ukraine war end, a negative for tankers, while the potential new administration could prove to be much tougher on Iran, something he saw as a positive for the tanker trades. “Over the last few years what’s been quite bad for the world has generally been quite good for shipping. So maybe I’ll let you draw your own conclusions [on Trump],” said Hatton. Greater “operational complexity” is something shipping should anticipate with Trump’s possible return and a subsequent ratcheting up of trade tiffs with China, predicted Hartzell from GSB Tankers. This neatly segued into all things China and oil, with the panel unsure whether the tanker industry can rely on the People’s Republic for demand growth in the years ahead. John Kartsonas, managing director of Breakwave Advisors, said that while China has been the most important driver of growth for more than 20 years, tanker owners should be worried about the speed of the transition away from crude going on at present with a huge drive to build up electric vehicles, LNG-powered trucks, and a high-speed rail network. While the likes of India and Southeast Asia are growing demand-wise, they cannot replace China from a tonne-mile perspective, Kartsonas cautioned. The next Maritime CEO Forum takes place at the Monaco Yacht Club on October 22. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googlet