The price of hiring supertankers to transport oil surged to a fresh high, adding huge costs to the petroleum supply chain.
It now costs $77 million to hire a very large crude carrier to move U.S. oil to Asia, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London on October 7. The average in 2025 was $9.2 million.
While headline oil futures are trading at around the $100-a-barrel mark, those futures are typically based on grades at the point of export. For a 2 million barrel cargo, the freight price implies an additional delivery cost of about $38.50 a barrel. In some markets, like West Africa, sellers are being forced to discount their cargoes at the point of export.
The Iran war has brought chaos to the tanker market, redrawing how oil leaves the Middle East and adding huge amounts of time to the process. While the region’s flows have been rebounding in recent weeks, the trade is far more complicated than it was before the Iran war, adding to delivery times and effectively slashing fleet supply.
