Asian refinery orders for U.S. crude have plunged by 50% from September. The Iran war has made oil tanker voyages so inefficient that vessel availability has crumbled and freight costs have soared to record-highs, erasing the incentive for shipping crude oil from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia.The cost of shipping crude oil from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China soared to $80 million earlier this month. That’s ten times the tanker rates before the Iran war. U.S. crude oil and petroleum exports surged to a record high in the early weeks of the Middle East war. But the conflict broke the global tanker market and added a shipping crisis on top of the oil supply and fuel crises.The Iran war has reshuffled trade routes and patterns and tied up more tankers in inefficient and lengthy voyages.Ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in the Gulf of Oman are tying up supertankers for weeks waiting for the transfers outside the Strait, limiting the availability of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) for the other global key oil trade routes, such as the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia.The Gulf of Oman shuttle fleet has expanded to about 80 VLCCs. However, the average round-voyage times have reached 23 days, more than double the optimal 9–10 days for a round trip from Basrah in Iraq to Sohar offshore Oman, according to Kpler, leaving the market short on vessels elsewhere.https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Record-Tanker-Rates-Cripple-US-Crude-Oil-Flows-to-Asia.html
