Iran War Pushes Middle East Oil Tanker Rates to All-Time High

The freight rate for a supertanker carrying crude oil on the key Middle East-to-China route hit a record high of more than $420,000 per day on Monday as the war in the Middle East disrupts the world’s busiest and most important shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz. The daily rate for hiring a very large crude carrier (VLCC), which is capable of shipping about 2 million barrels of crude, hit an all-time high of $423,736 on Monday, according to Baltic Exchange’s so-called TD3C MEG-China index. The tanker rates for all…