Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil shipper provisionally hired at least five supertankers, adding to demand for the giant ships at a time when their booking costs are soaring.
Two of the hires by Bahri, as the National Shipping Co. of Saudi Arabia is known, were reported on a booking-tracker run by Tankers International. Two more were listed in fixture reports from brokers and a fifth was confirmed by a person with direct knowledge of the deal. The five very large crude carriers are expected to transport barrels from the region to Asia in the coming weeks, according to the fixtures.
The oil market watches Bahri’s activities closely for clues on Saudi flows. Shipping companies normally only hire in extra vessels if they don’t have enough to transport their own cargoes. The country recently started a big new gas project that could ultimately free oil for exports, and there are signs that the country’s shipments are indeed rising.
Bahri didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bookings come as benchmark supertanker earnings rise to the highest level in years, buoyed by a South Korean owner snapping up tankers. Rates are also climbing as traders fret about potential conflict between the US and Iran, which risks impacting oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which about a fifth of the world’s oil travels.
The cost of hauling two million barrels of crude from the Middle East to China on Tuesday approached $200,000 a day for the first time since 2020, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. One of the ships Bahri chartered, DHT Jaguar, was booked at the equivalent of $208,000 a day, Tankers International data show.
Bahri hasn’t chartered this many ships in almost six months, according to fixture data compiled by Bloomberg.
Saudi Arabia plans to ship roughly 8 million barrels of additional crude to China next month after cutting its prices to the lowest level in five years. It also recently sold oil from its massive Jafurah natural gas project, which in addition to pumping a type of extra-light oil called condensate, is expected to displace supplies burned for electricity use at home.
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