OIL TANKER RATES HIT RECORD $1 MILLION A DAY AS HORMUZ TRAFFIC COLLAPSES The cost of chartering a VLCC from the Persian Gulf to China has surged to roughly $1.035M per day, up nearly 5x from around $208K before the Iran war. Only 17 commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, down from 37 a week earlier and versus roughly 125 large commercial vessels per day before the war. The shortage of ships willing to enter the Gulf has created a major earnings tailwind for spot-exposed tanker operators including $FRO, $INSW and $DHT. The rate spike has become so extreme that Trafigura is launching its own VLCC company, Volare Shipping, with six tankers already operating and eight more on order ahead of an Oslo listing.