Rates on tankers in the East of Suez market are improving after hitting multi-year lows earlier this year. An ongoing outage at a major export refinery in the Middle East continues to be a damper on the market but brokers and chartering managers say there is a gradual recovery occurring as seasonal demand in the Far East picks up.
Spot rates for long-range-one (LR1) tankers took their biggest spill in January after a fire hit a gasoline production unit at the Ruwais refinery in Abu Dhabi.
