Ningbo
Chinese port city in Zhejiang; with Zhoushan, the world's busiest cargo port
Hiring a supertanker for the benchmark Ras Tanura run to the port reached a record $1.2m a day in The Week to 25 September 2026, assessed at Worldscale 1,157.5. The rate had risen 43 per cent in fifteen days.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why does the price of a supertanker get measured by a run to Ningbo?
Timeline for Ningbo
Completed the benchmark route that set the record rate
Iran Conflict 2026: Supertanker hire passes $1.2m a dayBackground
Ningbo is a port city in Zhejiang province on China's east coast. With neighbouring Zhoushan it forms Ningbo-Zhoushan, the busiest port in the world by cargo tonnage, which handled more than 1.4 billion tonnes in 2025 and held that rank for a seventeenth consecutive year. It also moved 43 million containers that year, third in the world, so the same berths register both the oil trade and the manufactured one.
The Baltic Exchange uses the Ras Tanura to Ningbo voyage as its benchmark for Saudi crude moving to China, which attaches a published price to the city's name and gets it quoted FAR from Zhejiang. A destination becomes a number that way.
That is why a Chinese port appears in a Gulf War file. Chinese refiners are the buyers at the FAR end of the run, and the freight they pay is the clearest single measure of risk in the strait of Hormuz. The city does not set the rate; it defines where the voyage ends.
Where is Ningbo?
Is Ningbo the world's busiest port?
Why is the Ras Tanura to Ningbo route important?
How many containers does Ningbo handle?
