The supertanker market has tightened this year as crude supply from OPEC+ and the Americas rises and vessels make increasingly longer trips. So much has the market tightened that several new-built very large crude carriers (VLCC) have made empty maiden voyages from yards in Asia to pick supply from producing countries in the Middle East, the Americas, and Africa, instead of loading fuels made in Asia on their first journey.
As many as six VLCC, or supertankers as they are commonly known, have traveled this year empty on their maiden voyages, according to vessel-tracking data reviewed by Bloomberg and shipping analytics firm Signal Ocean. Last year, only one tanker made an empty maiden voyage.
Usually, supertankers travel with gasoline cargoes on these first trips, but apparently the market shortage has prompted owners to forego this loading and rush to send the tankers on load crude as daily rates have soared.
The daily rates for chartering a vessel to transport commodities have surged this year, with oil tanker rates skyrocketing by 467%, as shippers of a growing commodity supply are grappling with a series of route disruptions and sanctions.
Despite the typically weaker commodity demand period toward the end of each year, the last weeks of 2025 don’t show any weakness in the vessel rates for transporting crude oil, LNG, iron ore, or wheat.
The unusual strength at the end of the year has seen oil tanker rates on the key shipping routes surge by 467% year to date, according to Bloomberg’s estimates based on data from the Baltic Exchange and commodity markets data provider Spark Commodities.
At the end of November, supertanker rates on the route between the Middle East and China hit their highest in five years as traders sought alternatives to Russian crude after the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s biggest oil producers and exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil. Rates for smaller tankers have also shot up as traders turn to all available vessels to transport crude.
Tanker rates have been climbing for over a month amid sanction-related disruptions that led to a surge in oil in transit.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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