Lloyd's List assessed TD3C, the Baltic Exchange benchmark route for Very Large Crude Carriers from the Middle East Gulf to China, at a spot $412,888/day on 16 June, with the 4Q26 forward freight agreement near $181,163/day, roughly twice the US Gulf-China equivalent at $86,314/day1. The dollar figures are assessed during a notional Hormuz closure rather than struck on actual fixtures; the load-bearing signal is the 2x MEG-to-Atlantic relationship, not the precise print.
A forward freight agreement is the freight market pricing the cost of moving a cargo months ahead, and this one is not decaying. The 4Q26 curve at twice the Atlantic basin is the shipping desk's own statement that it does not believe The Gulf disruption is over, even as flat crude prints three-month lows. The freight market priced the routing story more honestly than the crude screen, which front-ran a clean reopening the tonne-miles do not support.
The same physical scramble shows up closer to Europe. The Med Aframax bid that took TD19 to WS228 is the non-Hormuz sourcing scramble in the Mediterranean, paid for in the same tonne-miles. Crude flat price and forward freight are pricing two different futures: one a resolution, the other a sustained disruption. When they disagree this far, the freight curve is usually carrying the cargo the screen forgot.
