Tanker freight extended its rise on Friday. The site tanker freight index closed at 968.92 dollars, up 2.05 percent on the day and 8.06 percent on the week, in a week that brought the first successful limpet mine strike in the Strait of Hormuz since February and the strike on the Qatari LNG carrier Al Mayeda. Dry bulk freight moved the other way, down 2.25 percent on the day to 12.19 dollars and down 3.33 percent on the week.
The split is the story. Dry bulk carries iron ore, coal and grain, none of which transits Hormuz in size, and its decline tracks the soft industrial complex, including Friday’s base metals selloff. Tanker freight prices one thing only at the moment: the risk and delay cost of moving crude and products through or around the Gulf.
The levels behind the index are extreme by pre war standards. The cost of moving a very large crude carrier through the Strait of Hormuz has risen from 80,000 to 120,000 dollars a day before the war to about 1.33 million dollars a day by October 2026, according to the Nautilus Shipping war risk report for October, with war risk insurance premiums for a single transit at 6 to 10 percent of hull value, against a pre war baseline of about 0.1 percent. Daily tanker transits through the strait have fallen from 138 to single digits.
For refiners and charterers, the freight bill is now a material part of the delivered crude price, and it does not fall when Brent falls. It falls when ships stop being attacked.