Tanker Windfall Masks a Coming Reckoning: 88 VLCC Orders in 90 Days Signal a Market at a Crossroads

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LONDON — The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz since late February 2026 has handed tanker owners one of the most extraordinary earnings periods in modern shipping history, but a wave of speculative newbuilding orders is now raising questions about what happens when the crisis ends.

Tanker traffic through the strait collapsed by an estimated 95%, bringing a chokepoint that once handled more than 100 ship transits per day to near standstill. The capacity shock was immediate. The disruption effectively immobilised 329 crude and product tankers in the Middle East Gulf, including 72 Very Large Crude Carriers, which represents roughly 8% of global VLCC supply, with additional effective supply hits across suezmax, aframax, and medium-range product tanker segments.

The result was a freight rate explosion that rewrote market records within days.

Using a benchmark newbuilding price of USD 128 million for a 320,000 deadweight tonne VLCC and spot earnings assessed at USD 480,000 per day on the Arabian Gulf to East route, the theoretical payback period for a new vessel compressed to roughly 267 trading days, or less than nine months before operating costs, finance, and off-hire are accounted for.

Tankers International reported that Greek owner Minerva Marine‘s 15-year-old, 317,000 deadweight tonne vessel Pantanassa was fixed to South Korea’s GS Caltex at USD 436,000 per day, the highest ever spot rate recorded for a single VLCC fixture.

The crisis also exposed a structural divide between owners whose vessels were trapped inside the Gulf and those trading elsewhere. Owners with tonnage on West Africa to Asia, US Gulf to Europe, and Brazil to China routes collected elevated global rates without facing the operational and insurance risks of a Gulf transit. A vessel earning above USD 350,000 per day while remaining fully operational represented a materially different business outcome than one sitting idle at anchor near the strait.

The impact was visible across market segments, with a growing backlog of tankers anchored outside the strait reducing available vessel capacity and pushing prices higher, according to ING Group senior economist Rico Luman.

The earnings environment translated quickly into contracting activity. In the three months leading up to 25 February 2026, 88 VLCCs were ordered at a combined value of USD 10.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 633%. Newbuilding prices reached their highest levels since August 2009, with 320,000 deadweight tonne vessels rising approximately 5.57% to USD 133.72 million. Hengli Shipbuilding emerged as the most active yard, accounting for 35 VLCC orders in that period alone.

Greek owners have been the dominant sellers on the secondhand market, accounting for approximately 28% of VLCC sales, while simultaneously placing newbuilding orders at a record pace, with overall ordering volumes running nearly four times ahead of the same period last year.

Secondhand sales activity surged from 14 transactions in the first two months of 2025 to 71 over the same period in 2026, an increase of approximately 407%. Sinokor Merchant Marine accounted for 76% of all VLCC sales, bringing its total acquisitions to 54 vessels.

Not all of the gains flowed to shipowners. Countries with export infrastructure bypassing the strait leveraged their position as buyers competed for alternative supply. Saudi Arabia activated rerouting of some crude exports through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. The United Arab Emirates similarly directed volumes through the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman.

Every day the closure continued to reinforce the economic case for investing in pipeline and alternative corridor capacity, a structural argument that persists regardless of how the geopolitical situation resolves.

The container market faced different but connected pressures. The Strait of Hormuz handles approximately 20% of global oil supply but only 2 to 3% of container volumes, and while the closure proved highly disruptive for Gulf-bound containerised cargo, the broader container market faced upward rate pressure primarily through rising fuel costs rather than widespread network disruption.

The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index global composite rose to 2,572 points in the week ending late May, up 16% week on week and double its level in late February, just before the conflict began.

The pattern forming in the VLCC newbuilding market is one shipping analysts have seen before: a crisis generates windfall earnings, windfall earnings fund aggressive ordering, and the resulting tonnage oversupply arrives into a market that may no longer need it.

The VLCC orderbook surpassed 140 ships, representing around 15% of the existing fleet. Deliveries are expected to rise sharply to 40 vessels in 2026 and peak at 58 ships in 2027. If the Strait of Hormuz reopens and trade flows normalise before that tonnage enters service, owners who ordered at the top of the rate cycle could face a structurally oversupplied market on delivery.

CMB.TECH chief executive Alexander Saverys noted that tanker markets continued to defy gravity due to a mix of shifting trade patterns, modest newbuilding deliveries, and the activity of a particularly aggressive owner adding fuel to the fire. Whether that gravity asserts itself before the orderbook delivers will determine which owners emerge from the Hormuz crisis as long-term winners.