Surging Tanker Rates Push US Crude Shippers to Use Small Vessels

(Bloomberg) — In a desperate bid to transport oil from the US Gulf Coast to Asia, shippers have taken the unusual step of booking smaller vessels as costs soar for the massive tankers typically used.

The move signals Asian buyers are looking past the Middle East to secure much-needed crude as the war in the Middle East escalates, making larger vessels less available and extremely expensive.

Each Aframax typically carries about 700,000 barrels of crude, meaning it takes about three such vessels to move the same volume as a single very large crude carrier. While Aframax shipments are typically more expensive on a per-barrel basis, they can be secured faster, allowing traders to move barrels despite the tight freight market.

Several Aframax vessels recently have been booked to carry crude from the Gulf Coast to Singapore loading in mid-March, including the Sea Turtle and Kalahari booked by ST Shipping, the shipping arm of Glencore Plc, and the Alicante, chartered by Thailand’s PTT, according to traders and shipping fixtures seen by Bloomberg.

“When a national oil company in Asia starts pulling crude from the Gulf Coast, it usually means the market is scrambling to replace barrels that are no longer reliably available from the Persian Gulf,” said Julian Renton, an analyst at East Daley Analytics. “One of the earliest signals is smaller parcel movements rather than full VLCC cargoes.”

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