Freight climbs to 27% of a delivered oil barrel's cost as Hormuz traffic returns

The supertanker day rate reported by Poten & Partners is up about 40-fold since January ^[1]. Over the same period, freight's share of a delivered barrel is up about ninefold, from roughly 3% to roughly 27% ^[13][2]. Both figures can be true at once. A charter is priced per ship per day. The share divides freight per barrel by the delivered price, and that price has also risen: Brent is more than 40% above its pre-war level ^[3]. Two things sit between the day rate and the share, voyage length and the number of ships each cargo passes through, and both have grown ^[10][11].

The extra ships come from how crude now leaves the Gulf. According to Reuters, whose reporting mezha.net carried, oil crossing the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman often needs several tankers, and it is then moved onto smaller vessels for Asian buyers ^[10]. The supertankers working that relay stay in the region and are not available for other routes ^[10]. Asian buyers are also taking more Atlantic-basin crude, and those longer voyages compete for the same ships ^[11]. The network was built to move large volumes over long distances at minimal cost. The wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe broke its usual routes, and tanker rates and insurance both rose sharply ^[17].

Kpler's recovery figure should be read the way any benchmark is read. It is a seven-day average on a single date, and flows fell after it ^[1][2]. Tankers often switch off satellite tracking while crossing the strait and for several days afterwards, so Kpler's estimates may be revised up ^[2]. Ships going dark in a war zone have priorities other than analysts' dashboards. The 80% figure implies a pre-war baseline of roughly 18 million barrels a day ^[5]. For it to describe recovered supply, the average has to hold and the dark transits have to be counted.

Saudi Arabia shows how few bypass routes exist. Iran blocked the strait after the US and Israel went to war with it on 28 February ^[4]. The kingdom moved exports onto its East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea, a route that at one point this year carried 4% of world supply ^[5]. September's 3 million barrels a day through Hormuz was about half the pre-war rate ^[7]. That puts the pre-war Saudi flow through the strait near 6 million barrels a day ^[4]. The report says supply could rise quickly if the pipeline is brought back in stages ^[7].

Energy Aspects' estimates mean the shortfall has narrowed by about 2.4 million barrels a day, or 60%, since May ^[3]. In a normal market that would push prices down ^[9]. Washington and Tehran still have no agreement on the strait's future, and Reuters treats that risk as only part of the price ^[9]. Refining is another part, with capacity lost in the Middle East and Russia ^[15]. The report does not put a figure on the lost capacity.

Shipping costs are unlikely to fall back until trade flows approach their pre-war pattern ^[14]. Reuters' reporting says these logistics problems could keep consumer energy bills high for months or years ^[16]. I think freight's share of the delivered barrel tracks that risk better than the Hormuz volume does. It comes down only when the Gulf relay and the long Atlantic hauls wind down ^[14].