VLCC daily freight rates reached $423,736 on Day 4 of the conflict — an all-time record that exceeds the previous peak set during the First Gulf War in 1991. War risk premiums for a single Very Large Crude Carrier voyage hit $400,000, up 60% from the $250,000 pre-conflict level. The 1991 record had stood for 35 years. It fell in four days.
Those costs compound through the supply chain. A VLCC carries approximately two million barrels of crude oil. At $400,000 in war risk premium alone — before fuel, crew, port charges, and the record daily hire rate — the per-barrel insurance cost has risen from roughly 13 cents to 20 cents. That increment is small per barrel. It is not small across a market that moves roughly 100 million barrels per day. Combined with Brent Crude's climb from $73 before the strikes to $85–90 on 1 March , and European gas prices surging 45–54% after Iran struck Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facility , the cost increases are stacking at every stage from wellhead to refinery gate.
The rate record reflects a structural shortage of available tonnage in navigable waters, not a surge in demand. More than 150 tankers were anchored in open Gulf waters on 1 March , unable to transit Hormuz, unable to load, unable to discharge. The ships exist; they cannot move. Charterers bidding for the diminishing pool of tankers willing to operate outside the risk zone are paying war-economy prices for peacetime routes — driving up freight costs globally, including on voyages nowhere near the Persian Gulf.
