Record $44.8 million VLCC hauls and an SPR-fuelled May peak cast doubt on the durability of US crude's Asia surge
Signal Maritime expected June exports to drop more than 1 million bpd, and $44.8 million VLCC freight bills are hard to justify at current Brent-WTI spreads.
Supertanker rates on the Baltic Exchange's benchmark Middle East-to-China shipping route surged to $800,000 a day by Friday (2026-09-11), OilPrice.com reported, as US forces destroyed five Iranian-linked tankers and Tehran threatened further escalation. ICE Brent crude front-month sat at $105.60 a barrel on Wednesday (2026-09-16), with NYMEX WTI front-month at $102.02, a spread of roughly $3.58 a barrel. The market is treating both data points as bullish confirmation of a tight supply world. They may be telling a more complicated story.5
A record $44.8 million to charter a very large crude carrier from the US Gulf to China sits uncomfortably against that spread. At current Brent-WTI differentials, the commodity arbitrage benefit for buyers of US crude shrinks considerably against a freight bill of that size, leaving sellers absorbing the cost through lower netbacks or buyers through higher landed prices. Neither outcome sustains high transpacific volumes indefinitely.5
The market's focus has been on the headline export number. US crude exports climbed to 5.6 million barrels per day in May, topping the prior record of 5.2 million bpd set in April, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters. Asia absorbed 2.45 million bpd of those barrels. Japan alone took 808,000 bpd, a 32% monthly jump and a record, driven by necessity as its refiners normally draw the bulk of their feedstock from the Middle East.2
But the May number included a supply source that cannot scale. At least 283,000 bpd, or about 5% of US crude exports in May, were barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, part of a 172-million-barrel drawdown currently underway to hold prices down. The SPR is finite. Georgios Sakellariou, a chartering analyst at Signal Maritime, said his firm had already observed at least 10 fewer vessels chartered for transpacific routes and expected exports to fall by more than 1 million bpd in June relative to May.2
Low WTI crude inventories inside the United States compound the picture. Sources and analysts told Reuters that constrained domestic stocks would redirect barrels into US storage rather than onto export tankers, competing directly with volumes Asian buyers are counting on.2
Asian buying may also have been driven more by urgency than by durable trade economics. Rohit Rathod, a senior oil market analyst, told Reuters that May's Asian purchasing was driven mainly by necessity, while European demand over the same period reflected favorable shipping economics on the shorter transatlantic crossing. Europe took 2.4 million bpd of US crude in May, nearly matching Asia's intake. If European volumes hold while Asian buyers pull back as alternatives emerge, the transpacific leg shrinks first.2
Alternatives are gradually materializing. Hormuz flows have edged up toward roughly 10 million barrels a day, about half pre-war levels, according to estimates cited in market reports on Wednesday (2026-09-02), though volumes are not guaranteed to leave every day. The US, Canada and Guyana together are expected to raise output by a combined 1.4 million bpd this year, partially offsetting Gulf losses, while Russian exports held at around 5.5 million bpd across July and August, down from a June peak of 6.4 million bpd, ABP Live reported.4,3
Standard Chartered commodity analysts noted that ceasefire statements around Friday (2026-05-29) were met with heavy algorithmic selling despite contradictory messaging from both Washington and Tehran, suggesting the market has been slow to price in diplomatic risk in either direction.1
June US export data from EIA or Kpler will provide the clearest test of the Signal Maritime forecast. If exports dropped more than 1 million bpd from May's record, the surge looks like a one-month response to emergency buying and SPR releases rather than the start of a durable US supply role in Asia. At $44.8 million per voyage, the freight economics push hard against the latter reading.2