By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) – The marketplace for hedging oil tanker freight has revived sharply this yr to a price of $4.5 billion after years of torpor, with ship house owners seeking to revenue from a freight rally and extra vitality corporations scramble to cowl danger, business sources say.

Cheap oil cut price hunters after the worth drop and refineries, which have been working at unusually excessive ranges to fulfill rising demand, have helped tanker markets expertise their greatest earnings in years after a protracted interval of losses.

Rates for crude supertankers have soared in latest weeks to over $100,000 a day – their highest since 2008.

In tandem, tanker freight ahead agreements (FFAs), which permit a purchaser to take a place on the place freight charges will stand at a degree sooner or later, have seen a surge in exercise.

“A lot of oil majors are under a lot of pressure,” mentioned Jay Lovell, chair of the FFA tanker brokers’ affiliation.

“They have to be seen hedging any kind of assets that they have … that is why you are seeing a lot more driven volumes coming through from oil majors these days,” mentioned Lovell, head of tanker FFA buying and selling with main dealer Braemar ACM.

In the yr up to now, the worth of the FFA tanker market – which incorporates each crude and oil merchandise segments – reached over $4.5 billion, versus $3.2 billion for 2014 and $3.2 billion in 2013, in keeping with market estimates.

Oil majors together with BP, Phillips 66 and Statoil plus commerce homes Glencore, Trafigura, Vitol and Gunvor are lively in tanker FFAs.

Traded volumes for crude tanker FFAs have doubled to 106,660 tons within the yr up to now from 51,257 tons in 2014 and 35,990 tons in 2013. Products tanker FFAs reached 132,761 tons up to now this yr versus 129,899 final yr and 143,094 tons in 2013, Baltic Exchange information confirmed. The Baltic acts as a benchmark for the FFA tanker market.

Lovell mentioned prior to now six months, 20 new individuals had joined the FFA tanker market – some returning after being absent for years attributable to slower exercise at the moment.

Lower oil costs have meant marine bunker gas prices, that make up a big a part of a ship’s bills, have dropped. That helps backside strains and in addition provides to extra speculative exercise, brokers mentioned.

Glenn Huniche, FFA dealer with Maersk Tankers and chair of the advisory FFA tanker customers’ group, mentioned investments in transport by personal fairness homes and hedge funds in recent times have been including to the flows, whereas tanker house owners have been additionally taking extra punts.

“That is something that is going to be game changing in the years to come,” Huniche mentioned, forward of the annual FFA tanker discussion board in London this week.

“With the upturn, conventional (tanker) owners are coming back with money in their pockets – and that can be used in instruments like this.” (Editing by William Hardy)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.

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