**VLCC tanker rates have gone ballistic, hitting record highs across every major route as the Iran war chokes Hormuz traffic and scrambles global crude flows. Middle East Gulf–China earnings have reached about $1 million per day, while Gulf of Oman–China rates surged 300% in a month to $571,000 per day.**

The squeeze is spreading far beyond the Gulf. West Africa–China rates hit $411,000 per day, up 280% in a month, as longer Atlantic-to-Asia voyages tie up ships. [Lloyd’s List](https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1158430/Why-VLCC-rates-just-went-ballistic-and-how-they-could-go-even-higher) says renewed Chinese crude buying, dangerous Hormuz transits and increasingly inefficient workarounds — now worsened by the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline — are tightening available tanker supply further.

With refining margins still unusually high, charterers can so far absorb the freight shock. Brokers say there is “no clear ceiling” yet.

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