The leasing of dry bulk tanks, used primarily for plastic pellets, has picked up significantly in recent months, according to Matt Niemeier. We think the rail services are over capacity and a lot of product that would normally be hauled by rail has gone to the trucking side.
Demand for for franc sand tanks has not stopped, purchases have been cut down in the last 3 months as the price of crude has dropped and some oil rigs have shut down operations according to Neiemeier.
Other segments will be strong, asphalt trailers and cement trailers but with the oil price drop the overall demand will be down. Leasing demand for general chemical tank trailers and tank containers also remains strong according to Steven Tapscott. This is still a good market.
Dennis Cooke of Ryder Systems said the oilfield slowdown actually is helping the outlook for tank leasing. We’re seeing a lot of customers looking to reduce costs as a result and are looking for an alternative to doing maintenance themselves, he says. They do a lot of cost of ownership analysis and leasing shows up as an alternative they may not have looked at before. We see the oilfield slowdown has actually caused companies to look for savings in areas they would not have looked at in the past. The leasing market is very strong because of complexities of the new EPA-driven technology.
Overall nationally in the US business volume in February is up at $6.1B up 13% from February of 2014 and 12% year over year.
BULK TRANSPORTER, April 2015, Rick Weber
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