Meridian World Desk
Freight rates for supertankers carrying oil from the Gulf of Oman to China have hit a record high, according to Baltic Exchange data, as the war between the United States and Iran spreads risk and cost across global shipping lanes. Rates on the benchmark route reached about 450 on the Worldscale index, the industry’s standard pricing measure, equivalent to roughly $11.50 a barrel of oil carried.
The surge has not been confined to the Gulf. Very large crude carrier (VLCC) rates on the route from West Africa to Asia have also hit record highs, a sign that owners are now pricing in Middle East risk even for cargoes that never pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
The rate spike follows a sharp escalation in the naval conflict between the United States and Iran. Iran said it had attacked ten ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the United States sank five Iranian oil tankers, though the precise number of vessels involved on each side has not been independently confirmed. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway separating Iran from Oman, is one of the world’s most important chokepoints for seaborne oil, and any disruption there ripples quickly through global energy markets.
Separately, Houthi forces reached the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the waterway between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that forms the southern gateway to the Red Sea, according to Yemeni government sources. The Houthis are an Iran-aligned armed movement that controls large parts of Yemen and has repeatedly targeted shipping in the Red Sea corridor since the war began. Their presence on Perim adds a second front of risk for tanker owners already contending with the Gulf crisis, since vessels avoiding the Strait of Hormuz have historically had few alternative routes that do not also pass near Yemen’s coast.
Owners pull back, rates climb
Shipping analysts say the rate increases reflect owners’ reluctance to send vessels into contested waters rather than any physical shortage of oil. Ioannis Papadimitriou, an analyst at the shipping data firm Vortexa, said the pattern reflects how quickly the tanker market reprices when operators judge a route too dangerous, thinning the pool of vessels willing to sail it and pushing up what remains available.
With fewer owners willing to commit ships to the Gulf and the Red Sea corridor simultaneously, charterers have had to bid up rates to secure capacity, a dynamic that has now spread to routes as distant as West Africa.
The conflict driving the disruption has been building for months. The war between the United States and Iran began in late February, and tensions around the Strait of Hormuz escalated sharply in early September, when American forces struck Iranian tankers and Iran responded with missile launches near the strait. Iran’s government has said the US sank five of its oil tankers before its own forces struck back at vessels in the area, a sequence of claims and counter-claims that has not been independently verified in full.
The economic stakes extend well beyond the shipping industry itself. Both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait rank among the handful of maritime corridors through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil and gas must pass. Sustained disruption to either, let alone both simultaneously, raises the prospect of higher fuel costs working their way through supply chains and consumer prices well beyond the Middle East.
For now, the tanker market is registering that risk in real time. The record rates on the Gulf of Oman to China route, and the parallel surge on the West Africa to Asia corridor, show owners and charterers pricing in a conflict that shows no sign of resolution.