A shortage of supertankers is redrawing where refiners buy their oil

The world is running short of the largest crude tankers, and the shortage is changing which barrels get bought. The Japan Times reports that the shortage makes faraway cargoes less attractive and pushes refiners toward supplies closer to home when they can find them. Freight costs are no longer a negligible part of the delivered price of crude. They are now part of the buying decision itself.

Three forces are compounding. Sanctions have absorbed a large share of the tanker fleet into opaque trades that do not return to the mainstream market. Conflict in the Gulf has lengthened voyages and raised war-risk insurance. And shipowners have been slow to order replacements for an ageing fleet while future fuel rules remain unsettled, so capacity is not arriving to meet demand.

The routing effect extends well beyond oil. The Financial Times reports that the Strait of Hormuz, once a transit point for cargo ranging from helium to corn, has lost that general trade as businesses reroute at higher cost. Chokepoint risk, once treated as a rare, low-probability event, is now a permanent cost.

The winners are producers whose barrels are close to buyers. Kommersant, citing The New York Times, reports that Guyana has become one of the principal beneficiaries of the United States-Iran conflict, raising output as Middle East supply turmoil lifted prices. Atlantic Basin crude reaches Gulf Coast and European refineries on shorter voyages, which means less freight cost, less insurance and less exposure to a closed strait. That advantage is structural, and it persists after any given crisis subsides.