LONDON (Bloomberg) - Frontline Ltd., the world's largest operator of supertankers, rose the most in six weeks in Oslo trading after second-quarter profit beat analyst estimates.

Net income fell to $27.8 million, or 36 cents a share, from $318.4 million, or $4.25, a year earlier, Hamilton, Bermuda-based Frontline said on Friday in a statement. That compares with the $6 million average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Operating revenue declined to $281.5 million from $547.5 million.

The shares climbed as much as 6.6 percent.

Frontline said its very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, earned an average of $38,400 a day in the quarter. New York-based Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. said on August 5 its 17 supertankers were chartered in the spot market at an average rate of $32,020 a day in the same period..

Average rates for the vessels in the third quarter were $25,052, Frontline said, citing Clarkson plc., the world's largest shipbroker.

"VLCC rates achieved by Frontline were significantly higher than" those of its peers, said Lars Erich Nilsen, an analyst at Oslo-based Fearnley Fonds ASA.

Frontline traded 3.61 kroner, or 2.5 percent, higher at 148.1 kroner as of 10.19 a.m. in Oslo, valuing the company at 11.5 billion kroner ($1.92 billion.)

The stock slumped 26 percent this year.

Demand for storing oil at sea "is likely to continue to give fundamental support to the trading market", Frontline said. Recent economic data are also "positive" and may show the second quarter was a turning point for the global economy, it said.

AP Moeller-Maersk A/S, Denmark's largest owner of crude carriers, said on August 21 that lease rates for crude oil tankers have dropped to a record because of reduced cargo supply.

The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index, an overall measure of crude oil shipping costs, including rates for tankers smaller than Frontline's, averaged 527 points in the second quarter, the lowest since at least the fourth quarter of 2001, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped an average of 13 percent less oil than in the same quarter last year, while the carrying capacity of the fleet expanded 5.6 percent, according to Lloyd's Register-Fairplay data.

Global oil demand fell 3.1 percent to 83.7 million barrels a day from a year earlier, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

Demand will drop 2.7 percent to 83.9 million barrels a day this year, according to the adviser.

On the benchmark route for VLCCs that deliver two million-barrel cargoes of Saudi Arabian crude to Japan, earnings averaged $16,818 a day, according to the exchange.

London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. estimates owners need $11,603 a day to pay crew, insurance, repairs and other running costs.