Freight rates for U.S. crude tankers bound for Asia hit an all-time high on Wedn...
HOUSTON/NEW YORK - Freight rates for U.S. crude tankers bound for Asia hit an all-time high on Wednesday as U.S. sanctions on a Chinese transport giant cut vessel availability, traders and shipbrokers said.
The United States last week imposed sanctions on two units of China’s COSCO for alleged involvement in ferrying crude out of Iran. That action prompted U.S. Gulf Coast exporters to hold back chartering COSCO-linked vessels, traders and shipbrokers said. Friday’s highest quote was at $9.5 million for charterer Atlantic Trading & Marketing, a unit of Total SA, to book a VLCC from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China, shipbrokers said. The deal did not go through, the brokers said, and Atlantic Trading declined to comment.Occidental Petroleum Corp last week replaced a COSCO-operated supertanker, Coswish Lake, following the U.S. sanctions, by chartering smaller vessels from Texas to destinations in Asia, shipbrokers said.
“People are nervous about locking freight in at these high levels, which is why the last week has been so quiet,” one U.S. crude oil trader said.
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