The market continued to be depressed, and the group had losses on the chartered vessels. Næss was put under considerable pressure to abandon his policy of operating in the spot market but he strongly resisted long time charters as he believed the markets would recover. Then, in June 1967 the Six-Day War erupted, and the Suez Canal closed for years to come. This created an enormous surge in demand for tanker tonnage and the Næss group was ideally positioned with 16 large tankers available, receiving extremely good rates for its vessels.