To view current average Aframax and Suezmax spot rates, please visit Current Tanker Rates.

Spot tanker rates are driven by the balance between tanker demand and tanker supply.

Tanker demand has three main drivers:

1. Oil demand
2. Oil supply
3. Ton-mile effect

Tanker supply is driven by two main factors:

1. Newbuild order book
2. Scapping and removals

One-off factors can also impact tanker supply. A recent example is the number of ships used as floating storage, which temporarily decreased the active supply of ships available.

Ton-mile is the equivalent to transporting one ton of cargo over a distance of one mile. Ton-mile effect is created when customers source oil from greater distances, resulting in more tankers being required to transport the same volume of oil.

The correlation between OPEC production and tanker rates varies among the different tanker classes. Generally, when OPEC produces greater volumes of oil, demand for tankers increases, resulting in higher spot tanker rates.

While Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) are the most highly correlated, there is, however, some degree of OPEC influence on all tanker classes. For some classes, there is a lag period before the rates are impacted.