Do Listed Ocean Tanker Companies Have Operational Skill? Empirical Evidence from Fleet and Voyage Data

We investigate the drivers of quarterly reported average earnings from the fleet of listed tanker shipping companies. Using the trading pattern of individual vessels and freight market data, we derive new variables that attempt to capture the level of operational skill in terms of timing the entry into new contracts and dynamically allocating the fleet to economically favorable routes. We also assess whether differences in performance between companies are statistically significant. Our empirical results suggests that a large proportion of the observed average earnings are determined by overall market conditions and fleet-specific variables such as vessel age. We also do not find evidence of skill in terms of timing new contracts within the quarter. However, the results provide some evidence that spatial fleet allocation affects economic performance. Our results are important for the understanding of spatial and temporal freight market efficiency on tanker shipping.