A five-year-old tanker now costs more than a ship that does not exist
Argus puts a used VLCC at about $182 million and a new one at $130 million. BIMCO says five-year-old tanker prices are up 35 percent this year, VLCCs nearly 40 percent. Owners who are making money will not sell.
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A second-hand very large crude carrier is now worth about $182 million. A new VLCC is listed at about $130 million. The gap is not a rounding error. It is the price of time. A yard needs two to three years to deliver a new hull. A used ship can lift cargo next month.
Erica Tsirikou, a shipping markets analyst at Argus, put those figures in a note quoted by El Pais on Sunday. Used Suezmax ships, built to transit the Suez Canal, sit near $130 million against about $89 million for a newbuild. Used Aframax ships, which work shorter routes, sit near $95 million against about $75 million new. "There is fierce competition to acquire these second-hand tankers, which has pushed sale prices sharply higher," she wrote. Owners "are reluctant to sell vessels that are generating strong profits, which means fewer ships are available on the market and prices are being pushed even higher."
What BIMCO has measured since January
Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, said the average price of a five-year-old tanker has risen 35 percent since the start of the year. Supertanker prices are up nearly 40 percent. Those percentages track the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the freight spike that followed. Ships that can load now are scarce. Ships that can load in 2028 are not what a refiner wants this winter.
The inversion (used above new) is the tell. In a normal order book a new ship carries a premium for age, efficiency and remaining life. In this market the premium attaches to availability. A 2028 delivery date is a speculation. A 2018 hull with a crew on board is a cargo.
Who is bidding
Countries and independent owners are both in the queue. States that rely on seaborne crude and have thin national fleets are treating hulls as a strategic stock. Owners who already hold ships are earning the freight and have little reason to hand a competitor an extra vessel. That is how a sale list shrinks while the bid list grows.
Freight funds have already advertised the same squeeze. A tanker ETF that tracks hire rates became one of the best-performing U.S. funds earlier in the war after a four-figure percentage rise. The second-hand price table is the asset version of that hire rate.
The number to watch next is not Brent. It is how many five-year-old VLCCs actually change hands this month. If the sale count stays low while the $182 million ask holds, the shortage is in the fleet, not in the quote.
