www.zerohedge.com BY TYLER DURDEN
Late last week, we noted something remarkable taking place in the oil tanker market: amid a general unwillingness of tanker owners to send their vessels to Russian ports, the freight rates for a medium-sized tanker to load Russian crude jumped nearly threefold overnight last Thursday.
The freight rate to hire an Aframax tanker on the Baltic Sea to Europe route surged after Russia invaded Ukraine, while owners of oil tankers had already started to avoid Russian ports because of both the military invasion of Ukraine and apprehension that sanctions for oil could also come soon.
Rates for oil tankers on the TD6 Black Sea-to-Med route surged more than six-fold, by $90,752/day, to $107,382/day from under $17,000, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. That’s the highest since April 2020.
