Crude tanker market outlook remains strong

Ukraine fallout continues to elevate tanker demand while restricting vessel availability

Freight rates are likely to remain elevated this year for dirty tankers—those vessels primarily used to transport crude—despite wider economic headwinds. The Ukraine invasion forced a shift to longer, less-efficient movement of oil around the world, a pattern that will persist and might become more pronounced. And at the same time, slow fleet growth and illicit activity are also likely to limit tanker availability in 2023 and support freight rates. Last year saw a significant rerouting and reshuffling of global crude flows in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in what Saad Rahim, chief economist at trading house Trafigura, recently termed a “rewiring of the oil markets”. Large volumes