According to Bloomberg the costs of oil tankers are rapidly increasing, following the US’s sanctions against Chinese companies accusing them of hauling Iranian crude.
The rates for vessels hauling 2 million-barrel cargoes of Middle East oil to Asia rose to 19%; Meanwhile, the cost to transmit US crude to Asia on supertankers increased by 6.3% to $8.5 million on Thursday, as Bloomberg reports.
In general, the previous week the US imposed sanctions to a unit of COSCO shipping Corp., for transporting oil from Iran in defiance of sanctions set in place in November 2018. The sanctions affected the market, as many were the oil companies and traders who rejected tonnage connected with COSCO, whereas crude tanker rates surged.
Moreover, tanker rates from the Middle East to China were 75.13 Worldscale points.
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The rates have been experiencing an increase from the drone attacks on Saudi oil installations, which are among the world’s most important energy production centres.
Yet, in light of the US sanctions, China opposes to the penalties as they have been consistently disagreeing with the US.
Randy Giveans, an analyst at Jefferies LLC in Houston commented that the rates have been boosted already because of many reasons such as the Saudi attacks, ships getting refitted for new sulfur-emission rules, and importer nations building stockpiles.
