World Running Short Of Supertankers Threatens Long-Haul Oil Flow

By Yongchang Chin, Sherry Su, Nathan Risser and Alex Longley

Sep 19, 2026 (Bloomberg) –The soaring cost of moving oil around the world is making some long-distance crude trades uneconomical, threatening to disrupt flows at a time when fuel markets have never been tighter.

The jump is being driven by a shortage of available supertankers. In some parts of the world, there are barely any of the ships — each the length of three football fields — left for hire. The squeeze is making faraway barrels less attractive and encouraging refiners to snap up supplies closer to home if they can