Tanker Rate Dispute Hits $55M as Saudi-China Freight Hits $728K/Day

Supply chain and logistics teams moving crude out of the Persian Gulf are now facing a legal battle over what the benchmark rate actually means when the benchmark route is disrupted by war. Hunter Group's $55 million claim against a disputed counterparty shows how an all-time high VLCC assessment of $728,000 per day on the Saudi Arabia-to-China lane can create enormous payment gaps for cargoes that never enter the Strait of Hormuz.

Hunter Group ASA, the Oslo-listed oil tanker owner, says it is owed $55 million by an undisclosed counterparty that is disputing its contractual payment obligations after a surge in the world's benchmark supertanker freight rate. The underpayment has been building for months, rising about $12 million from the company's previous update roughly a month earlier. Although Hunter has not named the counterparty in its latest statements, a person familiar with the matter said in May that the customer is Mercuria Energy Group, one of the largest independent commodity traders. The company is preparing to argue in court that the benchmark rate itself has become distorted by Iran war disruption to the key Middle East-to-China route.

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Hunter Group's $55 million claim against a disputed counterparty shows how an all-time high VLCC assessment of $728,000 per day on the Saudi Arabia-to-China lane can create enormous payment gaps for cargoes that never enter the Strait of Hormuz.

The dispute highlights how quickly vessel earnings have re-rated. On Monday, earnings for very large crude carriers on the benchmark route from Saudi Arabia to China were assessed at $728,000 a day, an all-time high and more than 10 times last year's average. Ships carrying cargoes from outside the Strait of Hormuz to China were still earning $302,000 a day—historically exceptional but far below the inside-Gulf assessment. That spread is economically material: a contract linked to the benchmark can force a charterer to pay as if every cargo loaded under war-risk conditions, even when the actual voyage begins in safer waters.

The surge reflects several overlapping forces. The Iran war has made Persian Gulf transits far riskier, prompting owners to demand huge premiums. Houthi attacks on shipping have further altered Red Sea routing and tonnage availability. Separately, a giant bet on supertankers by a South Korean shipowner has tightened vessel supply. The combined effect has pushed benchmark rates to records, with the Saudi-to-China VLCC assessment crossing $700,000 a day in early September.

For Hunter Group, the $55 million receivable is material and accruing. The company appears to be treating it as underpayment rather than a one-off bad debt, and the month-over-month increase of $12 million suggests the disputed differential continues to widen as long as the benchmark remains elevated. If the court accepts Hunter's argument that the reference rate is distorted, it could validate higher payments for benchmark-linked charters and potentially embolden other owners to pursue similar claims. A ruling the other way would leave shipowners exposed to charterers using benchmark mechanics to cap costs in disrupted markets.

The dispute also matters because the benchmark is not merely a freight index; it underpins a range of commercial contracts, hedging instruments, and forward freight agreements. Distortion at the center of that system injects legal and valuation uncertainty into a market that is already volatile. Traders and shipowners may need to revisit force majeure, war-risk, and benchmark fallback clauses in existing contracts. Charterers, meanwhile, face a different risk: they may be locked into paying wartime peak rates for an extended period even if spot conditions normalize.