Global tanker fleet struggles to break even.

A generational energy crisis has created the most challenging environment ever in which shipowners must make decisions about investing in tankers to transport energy commodities. The global pandemic, closely followed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is reshaping supply and demand fundamentals for oil and gas against a backdrop of record-breaking prices and volatility. In China, a zero-Covid policy adds to global logistics logjams, stoking inflation that has curbed a post-pandemic economic recovery.

The fleet of some 8700 crude and product tankers (over 10,000 dwt) is caught between a rock and a hard place: the...