Saudi Arabia has offloaded roughly 60 million barrels of crude for delivery through October, forcing a massive logistical pivot. Instead of utilizing the Red Sea port of Yanbu, oil is now being moved from smaller vessels to supertankers in the Gulf of Oman. This shift has quadrupled daily transfer volumes, which hit 3.6 million barrels in September compared to 900,000 in August, according to data from Kpler.
Oman Crude Bottleneck Drives VLCC Rates to Record $1.27 Million
Shipping costs for Very Large Crude Carriers have surged to an unprecedented $1.27 million per day as Saudi Arabia shifts its export operations to the Gulf of Oman. The pivot, triggered by Houthi attacks on the East-West pipeline, has overwhelmed regional ship-to-ship transfer capacity and strained the global tanker market.
The logistical bottleneck stems from the inefficiency of these secondary transfers. Exporting this volume now requires 40 VLCCs, up from the 24 used prior to the pipeline disruption. Anoop Singh, head of global shipping research at Oil Brokerage, noted that the shuttle runs alone demand an additional 15 tankers. Compounding the scarcity, 20 tankers remain stranded in the Red Sea, idling while they wait for Yanbu to resume operations. With supply chains redirected and capacity maxed out, LSEG data confirms that freight rates have climbed to historic peaks.
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first!