Markets soften as players party

摘要

Tanker owners are wondering whether China can give them the same kind of boost that dry bulk rates have benefited from in the last few months.The booming Asian giant turned out to be the largest importer of crude oil in the continent in 2003, yet the per capita consumption of fossil fuels remains low. Chinese oil demand shot up by 0.54M bpd in 2003 to 5.5M bpd, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) figures, owing to a huge surge in oil-fired electricity generation after a massive shortfall in the thermal coal supply from August onwards.