Upcoming special surveys for tankers over 20 years old could prompt an increase in scrapping in 2021 and beyond, according to a top shipbroker.

Tanker removals so far this year have been slow to pick up despite scrap prices rising to near two-year highs in January and tanker earnings falling to multi-year lows, Simpson Spence Young (SSY) said.

In January and February, just six ships of 854,000 dwt were removed from the fleet down from 12 ships of 1.33m-dwt