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Home Energy Crude Oil By Irina Slav - Sep 16, 2026, 6:00 PM CDT Tanker rates have topped $1 million per day for the first time, as the Hormuz crisis creates a shortage of vessels willing to enter the Persian Gulf. Soaring freight, insurance and vessel costs are adding another premium to physical oil prices, with second-hand tankers now commanding extraordinary prices. Shipping risks are spreading beyond the Gulf, with Ukrainian attacks raising Black Sea costs and suspected cyberattacks on tankers adding a new threat to global energy flows.
The daily rate for commissioning a tanker topped $1 million for the first time in history amid a tightening supply of vessels to carry crude oil and fuels whose owners are willing to dare the Strait of Hormuz. The squeeze is adding extra costs to the price of oil for physical delivery, just as tankers become a cybersecurity target. Bloomberg reported record-high tanker rates earlier this week, noting that tankers commissioned to pick up crude from inside the Persian Gulf fetched as much as $1.035 per day, based on data from the Baltic Exchange.
Rates for tankers outside the Gulf have also gone up substantially, the publication noted, citing a daily rate of $644,000 for a tanker carrying crude from the Gulf of Oman—which is outside Hormuz—to China. Yet the Middle East is not the only place where tankers are commanding much higher rates. Costs are rising at Russia’s key Black Sea port of Novorossiysk because of the risk of Ukrainian drone attacks on both vessels and port infrastructure.
In the week to September 6, the key tanker rate for shipping crude oil on an Aframax tanker from Novorossiysk to West India and North China rose for the seventh straight week, by 2.7% and 3.1% from the week prior, respectively, local pricing indexes showed. Higher freight rates mean higher end prices for the crude, adding to already substantial pain for buyers as the war between the United States and Israel against Iran extends into its seventh month with little prospect of peace on the horizon. This week, prices saw some downward pressure after the U.S.
Energy Information Administration estimated an inventory build of over 7 million barrels for last week, but the effect will not last long. Seven million barrels of oil is not really a solution to the world’s deepening supply problem, with Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline out, potentially for weeks, after a drone attack. According to the International Energy Agency, global observed oil inventories shed 95 million barrels in August, for a cumulative loss of 507 million barrels since February, equal to around 2.8 million barrels daily.
Oil on water also declined by 65 million barrels amid attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. It is in this fraught context that U.S. federal authorities said they were investigating a possible cyberattack on tankers traveling from Europe to the United States. The Wall Street Journal reported the news this week, saying at least two vessels had become the target of a cyberattack and were subjected to inspections when they arrived at the Gulf Coast in August.
The inspections showed the tankers—one loaded with crude oil and the other with liquefied gas—were attacked around Gibraltar, raising suspicions that an unfriendly nation could be behind it, according to the WSJ report, which cited unnamed government officials. Gibraltar is a central energy artery for global markets, with daily traffic at around 300 ships. The report pointed out that a cyberattack could lead to a collision, a spill, or even an explosion, since tankers run on apparently hackable software.
“For a vessel that’s carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil, which is highly volatile, there’s always a risk of fire explosion,” the head of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Cyber Command told the Wall Street Journal. “The atmosphere in the tanks has to be very carefully managed to ensure that you’re not going to get a situation where there’s a fire explosion.
And then there’s always a risk of an oil spill,” Rear Admiral Jason Tama explained. Meanwhile, due to the higher tanker rates, energy market players are looking to buy their own vessels instead of paying others to rent one, especially since insurance costs have skyrocketed as well. “The price of second-hand oil tankers has surged since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and some used vessels are now valued more highly than new ones because it would take two to three years to build a new ship,” Argus analyst Erica Tsirikou told Spain’s El País earlier this month.
Second-hand tankers are selling at a premium to newbuids, too. A second-hand very large crude carrier now fetches some $182 million, versus $130 million for a newbuild. “There is fierce competition to acquire these second-hand tankers, which has pushed sale prices sharply higher,” Argus’ Tsirikou also told the Spanish daily, adding that used Suezmaxes are selling for $130 million and second-hand Aframaxes are fetching $95 million, compared with $89 million and $75 million, respectively, for newbuilds.
These developments were, in fairness, inevitable. The paralysis of the Strait of Hormuz has tipped the tanker market into imbalance, and this imbalance has only deepened since March. And it just got worse, as Saudi Arabia tries to repair its East-West pipeline and cancels oil cargoes that were to be shipped to Europe this month.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Hormuz Shipping Traffic Remains Stuck in Single Digits Germany Weighs Market Incentives to Boost Record Low Gas Storage Level TTF Gas Hits $92.95 as Gulf Tensions Weigh on Energy Markets Download The Free Oilprice App Today Back to homepage Irina Slav What I Cover Irina Slav has been writing about global energy markets since 2007, covering the oil and gas industry, energy security, commodities, and the... More Info Leave a comment EXXON Mobil -0.35 Open 57.81 Trading Vol. 6.96M Previous Vol. 241.7B BUY 57.15 Sell 57.00
