They buy mostly second hand tankers from Scandinavia and run the trade with lower labor costs thus making higher profits.

    The companies typically have very large cash reserves and are frequent buyers and sellers of ships.

    In 1973 however the Greeks ordered their first ULCC but they mostly engage their newer tankers for long term charters.

    The Greeks in the industry are people who work on intuition and believe that they do business because they have a good feeling of the market. As it is quoted in the text a Greek ship owner said once, “Business-I know nothing about business, I only know how to make money”.

    This approach has helped a large number of Greek ship owners but can be a potential threat if the market changes very unexpectedly.

Hong Kong Chinese:

    The Chinese players in the markets offer mostly long term charters to the Japanese oil refineries has they have a huge demand crude oil and have a hard time to match the requirements.

    The Japanese have entered into the Shikumisen transaction with the Hong Kong Chinese by which they are obliged to work together in the shipping trade.

    Their operating costs are very low as they labor and crew is cheap. Due to this they are able to save up to 300,000 to 400,000 USD per year.

    The Hong Kong Chinese have an edge in the market because of very low operating costs and the large demand of oil in Japan. They benefit from Japanese technology and hold a potentially secure place in the world market.

Suppliers:

    The suppliers in this industry are the oil producing nations. The main supplier in this field is the Middle East but the oil resaves in Brazil and Africa has been opened up recently.

    The oil producing nations are a part of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) which plays an important role in setting standards for the oil trade.

    The oil producing nations have the bargaining power and control the crude oil rates and the quantities they are supplying.

Buyers:

    Seven companies are the buyers of crude oil situated in the financial capitals of major oil importing counties. Five of the companies were situated in New York and one each in London and Tokyo respectively. 

    Due to the ever increasing energy consumption in the world the companies are thriving and are getting financially stable as time passes by.

New Entrants:

• At the moment entry into the market by new companies is highly unlike due to the fact that the market is saturated and the supply of the shipping services is much higher than the demand.

• High capital is require to enter the market.

• Maintenance costs of the vessels are very high.

• The government policies and high taxes imposed by the government make it even more difficult to do business in this field at the present time.

• It’s difficult to find enough work and sustain the business at this time so the possibility of new entries in the market is very marginal and insignificant in the present market.

Substitutes:

• There Suez is scheduled to complete in 1984 which would enable the ULCCs to commute through the canal thus decreasing the distance between the production and consumption of crude oil in the world. This would reduce the demand for oil tankers drastically.

• The increased oil production in South America North America and china would reduce the demand for oil tankers transporting from the Middle East.