Speed is “an underestimated factor in the current supply-demand balances in shipping,” said Petter Haugen, an industry analyst at DNB Bank in Oslo. Speaking late last year at a conference organized by Marine Money on the subject of slow steaming (or “speed optimization,” his preferred term), Haugen said high bunker costs have turned ship-operating costs on their head. Using a VLCC (very large crude carrier) as an example, he said for much of the 1990s, ship chartering accounted for...