One in five VLCCs ‘break bad’
![](https://splash247.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/VLCC-e1601878569563-780x470.jpg)
TankerTrackers.com, one of the world’s foremost sources covering illicit movements of oil, has worked out that one in five VLCCs trading today are “up to no good”.
The Samir Madani-led platform tracks ships breaking sanctions against Iran, Venezuela and Russia. It has counted 174 VLCCs out of the 900-strong fleet are currently breaking rules put in place by the US and the European Union.
The enormous growth of the so-called dark fleet, combined with China’s renewed appetite for oil, has pushed spot rates for VLCCs into six-digit territory over the past week, while prices for secondhand tonnage have doubled in the year since war in Ukraine began.
TankerTrackers.com tweeted that 19.33% of the global VLCC fleet are breaking sanctions, adding: “That means there’s greater demand for the remaining amount, and demand will remain strong if more ‘break bad’ by entering the oil sanctions trade.”
For suezmaxes, TankerTrackers.com reckons 15.2% of the fleet is breaking rules, and for aframaxes it counts 11.3%.
The bullish sentiment for VLCC spot rates over the past week has spread into the period market. Brokers Braemar report a 2015 VLCC, with scrubber retrofit, has covered a four-year deal at $43,000 per day with a string of one year optional rates at the end of the fixed term at $15,000 increments. A three-year deal has been consummated in the high $40,000s on a three-year old ship, and there are other deals at around $45,000 per day for five years.
“There is faith in this market,” Braemar noted in its most recent weekly tanker report.