A 2010-built VLCC has been fixed out at a striking $147,135 per day. The scrubber-fitted Kalamos, built at Shanghai Waigaoqiao, has reportedly been taken on at the bumper rate while currently positioned off India’s west coast. The vessel is listed as operated by Embiricos, with IOC named as the charterer. The fixture comes amid continued strong earnings for older workhorse tonnage. The savvy London-based Greek owner is famous for making fortunes on rusty mammoths in this segment. The spot fixture is reported by Tankers International, and the deal is noted to be on subs. Broker Fearnleys noted the hot VLCC segment at the moment has been underpinned by South Korean “kingpin” Sinokor controlling a large portion of the available fleet in the front end and pricing it accordingly. “Paper has been trading in tandem with the physical market and has to some extent been front running proceedings, notably also lifting the forward curve,” Fearnleys noted in its most recent weekly report. Splash has reported repeatedly this year on how Sinokor, in tandem with Mediterranean Shipping Co, has been on an historic VLCC acquisition binge, paying over the odds for a record-breaking amount of tonnage. New York-listed VLCC major DHT discussed Sinokor’s market-altering moves in its latest quarterly earnings this week without referring to the Korean owner by name. “A fundamental shift in fleet ownership is taking place with fleet consolidation by private actors gaining meaningful traction. We expect the aggregators to soon control at least 25% of the compliant tramping VLCC fleet – a critical market share. This consolidation will likely shift the pricing dynamics and put pressure on timely availability of ships,” DHT noted. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsGreece