South Korean Shipper Sparks Surge in Global Oil Tanker Rates

Last week, when looking at the latest global container shipping rates, we observed a surge in prices for all legacy Red Sea routes such as US and Europe to China, while simple trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific routes remained subdued. However this surge pricing in container rates is also shifting over to tankers: as Bloomberg reports, the cost to ship crude oil from the US Gulf to China surged after a slew of vessel hires by a South Korean shipowner. A flurry of booking activity by Sinokor Merchant Marine in the past week rapidly tightened the availability…