The new sanctions against Russia issued at the end of the year by the EU to target the oil tanker ‘shadow fleet’ that Moscow has deployed to circumvent Western restrictions on its oil traffic is having the effect of increasing the demand for tonnage for ships not subject to sanctions.
This is why freight rates for chartering Aframaxes have skyrocketed on the Russia-China trade route, so much so that on 7th January they hit $7m for transporting 100,000 metric tonnes from the Russian port of Kozimino to Dalian. This was a 324% increase over the previous week’s figures.
S&P Global points out that to date 56 of the 71 tankers licensed to carry the ESPO (Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean) crude oil from Kozmino have been sanctioned.
The low availability of tonnage clearly drove up the rates shipping crude oil on the 16 remaining Aframaxes. Freight rates reached unprecedented levels of $70 per metric tonne for shipping oil from Russia to ports in northern China.
Shipping company profits have shot up to $500,000 per day in this case.
Translation by Giles Foster
