Will the United States and Iran reach a formal nuclear agreement by the end of Q4 2026?
What moved
Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at Ras Tanura as VLCC rates for Middle East-China voyages surged beyond $500,000 per day with vessel flows from the Gulf reduced to a couple per day; tanker costs have ballooned on the supply-demand mismatch.
The market transmission
The Ras Tanura restart unblocks Gulf export capacity, but the collapse in available tanker tonnage, whether from diversion to longer routes, detention, or reduced vessel availability, has pushed freight costs to levels that compress netbacks for producers and raise the effective cost of Gulf crude for Asian buyers. High tanker rates can persist even as supply flows normalize if the vessel glut takes weeks to clear.
What would change this
A restart of the exporting terminal itself is supply-positive, but the headline is the freight cost spike. Tanker rates decouple from crude prices when tonnage is scarce relative to cargo; high headline crude prices with high tanker rates suppress the netback margin producers actually receive. The mechanism matters: if vessels are diverted to longer routes (Red Sea workarounds), the return to normal Gulf loadings may take time to ease the tonnage crunch, even if the terminal stays open.
Directional leans
BRENT ▲ moderate