Surging tanker rates amid the oil and shipping crisis helped Saudi Arabia’s shipping giant Bahri post a tenfold jump in net profit for the third quarter from a year earlier.
Bahri booked a net profit of $1.36 billion (5.1 billion Saudi riyals) for the third quarter, ten times higher than the profit of $137 million (513 million riyals) for the same period in 2025, driven in particular by the Bahri Oil business unit, the Saudi shipping firm said on Wednesday.
Compared to the second quarter, Bahri’s profit surged by 85%, the results showed, as the prolonged disruption at the Strait of Hormuz drove oil tanker rates to record-highs at the end of the third quarter.
The cost of shipping crude oil soared to record highs last month as the Iran war reshuffled trade routes and patterns and tied up more tankers in inefficient and lengthy voyages.
The increased flows of oil from the Strait of Hormuz, mostly thanks to ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in the Gulf of Oman, are tying up supertankers for weeks waiting for the transfers outside the Strait, limiting the availability of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) for the other global key oil trade routes, such as the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia.
As a result, tanker owners and operators have booked windfall revenues and earnings.
Bahri, whose tankers export most of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil, saw its revenues rise across all business units, but the Bahri Oil unit outperformed all with a revenue jump of $3.2 billion (12 billion riyals) in the third quarter compared to the same quarter last year.
Compared to the previous quarter, revenues at the Bahri Oil business unit jumped by $2.3 billion (8.6 billion riyals).
“This was mainly driven by increased operational activities and higher global freight rates,” the Saudi shipping giant said.
Total revenues at Bahri soared by over 500% year-on-year, to $3.9 billion (14.8 billion riyals). The figure was also more than double the second-quarter revenues of $1.7 billion (6.3 billion riyals).
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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