More Gulf oil is on the move again—but getting it out now costs a fortune.

Earnings on the benchmark Saudi Arabia-to-China supertanker route surged to a record $647,000 per day on Thursday, according to Baltic Exchange data cited by Bloomberg. That figure is more than ten times the rate a year earlier and nearly 27% above the $510,000-per-day level recorded just ten days before.

The spike comes as Persian Gulf producers step up crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz despite the ongoing Iran war. The strait normally handles roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply, which is why disruptions there ripple through energy markets far beyond the Gulf. In theory, higher export volumes should ease the oil supply crunch. Instead, the market has run into a different shortage: ships.

Few tanker owners are willing to send their vessels through Hormuz, leaving exporters to compete for the smaller pool of operators prepared to take the risk. The result is an extraordinary premium for anyone willing to make the voyage.

Increasingly, crossing Hormuz is only the first leg of the journey. Producers have begun shuttling crude through the strait before transferring cargoes onto other tankers outside the Gulf—an arrangement that effectively creates two freight bills: one for moving the oil through Hormuz and another for hauling it onward to Asia.

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said earlier this week that moving a single cargo through Hormuz cost about $20 million, and tanker market participants told Bloomberg that those costs have risen further since then. Freight bills of that size ultimately feed into the delivered cost of crude for importers, meaning shipping economics can affect refinery margins and fuel costs even when the oil itself keeps flowing.

Rates are climbing even outside the strait. A tanker traveling from Oman to China now commands roughly $220,000 per day, up from $131,000 a month ago—a sign that the scarcity of available tonnage is spilling into routes that never touch Hormuz.

The squeeze is being amplified by Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which have forced Saudi Arabia to reroute some barrels through the Mediterranean and around Africa, adding roughly 30 days to voyages bound for Asia. Longer voyages tie up vessels for extended periods, effectively shrinking the global tanker fleet's usable capacity.

There are signs that more oil is escaping the Gulf. Traders estimate Hormuz outflows at 6 million to 8 million barrels per day, while Goldman Sachs puts flows at roughly two-thirds of pre-war levels. How quickly owners become willing to re-enter the Gulf—and whether Red Sea transit normalizes—will shape whether freight rates stay elevated or ease back toward historical norms.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com