John Fredriksen says tanker prices will crash during the next couple of years and he is looking to use that window to expand his fleet.
Clarksons presently values a five-year-old VLCC at $83m, down from $104m at the end of 2008. According to Fredriksen, however, the greater fall is yet to come.
It will be within “a year or two” that the market “collapses”, he said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Fredriksen will then look to pick up vessels at a discount, the newswire says.
The report emerged only a couple of weeks after
Fredriksen’s closest aide Tor Olav Troim also predicted a lot of pain ahead for the VLCC market. He quipped shipping is facing its worst period since the Black Death.