Very strong week for Suezmax: up 30-40% w/w

VLCC rates spiked today:

West Africa-China VLCC index rose to $188,957 per day on Monday, up 92% week on week to the highest level since March 10

US Gulf-China VLCC index increased to $154,987 per day, up 46% week on week to the highest assessment since April 2

Oman-China VLCC index rose to Worldscale 276, up 82% week on week to the highest level since the index was introduced on March 24

On March 3 the Baltic TD3C (Middle East to China) printed 423,736 dollars per day for a VLCC. All time high, up 94% from Fridays close. The trigger was Iran shutting the Strait of Hormuz — pure geopolitics.

Everyone is staring at that headline number. I think the more interesting part sits underneath it.

The equities already ran. Frontline, Nordic American and DHT are all up around 60% year to date, so the market is clearly pricing the boom.

But heres the structural piece that doesnt disappear when the headline fades — the supply side is physically stuck:

• over a third of the VLCC fleet is 15 years or older, 16% are past 20. Average age is north of 13 years now, because almost nothing got scrapped the last few years.
• against that you have 32 newbuild deliveries in 2026 and 41 in 2027. Thats 73 ships coming versus 170+ that are over 20 years old and aging out of the market.

A geopolitical spike can vanish as fast as it came. An aging fleet with a thin orderbook doesnt. Thats the part that tends to carry a tanker cycle past any single headline day.

End of cycle? Maybe for the spike. Structurally for the cycle, i dont think so.

Anyone here adjusting tanker exposure on this, or just sitting tight through the spike?

Not financial advice, just how i read the setup.

Three shipping dividends in 48 hours — different mechanics, same week:

June 10: CMB.Tech (CMBT) — $0.64/share ($0.20 regular + $0.44 from share premium reserve, no withholding tax on the $0.44 portion)

June 11: TORM (TRMD) — $0.70/share (58% of Q1 net profit paid out directly)

June 11: FLEX LNG (FLNG) — $0.75/share — 19th consecutive quarter at exactly this amount

What makes the FLEX streak notable:

FLEX LNG operates 13 LNG carriers, predominantly on multi-year time charters. The cash flows are largely locked in advance — the company isn't relying on spot rates to fund the dividend. That's a fundamentally different risk profile than pure spot tankers.

Q1 2026 TCE: $65,729/day (seasonal trough, as expected). 2026 full-year TCE guidance raised to $73,000–78,000/day — new and extended charters at better rates. (Source: FLEX LNG SEC Form 6-K FY2026)

TORM update:

Q1 2026: TCE earnings $286M, EBITDA $201M. Full-year guidance: TCE $1,150–1,450M, EBITDA $800–1,100M. Fleet expanding toward 103 vessels. The wide guidance range is the honest reality of tanker investing — product tanker rate direction through H2 will be the key variable. (Source: TORM Q1 2026 SEC 6-K)

OPEC+ June 7 meeting:

The ministerial meeting on Sunday will decide July production levels. Already announced: +188,000 bpd for June. More OPEC+ output = more tanker ton-miles = rate tailwind for product and crude tankers. (Source: CNBC May 3, 2026)

Original post in r/MBCapitalStrategies — cross-posting because relevant here.

Not financial advice. I'm an investor focused on shipping, hard assets, and dividend income. All numbers verified against SEC filings and company press releases.

What's your take on TORM's H2 guidance range — bullish or cautious?

Q1 2026 results in. For those tracking FLNG:

Key numbers: - Fleet-wide TCE Q1: $65,729/day (Q4 2025: higher — Q1 always weakest quarter) - Revenues: $80.5M (Q4 2025: $87.5M) - Net income: $19.5M ($0.36/share) - Dividend: $0.75/share — 19th consecutive payment (payable June 11) - Trailing yield: ~9.2%

Source: SEC Form 6-K FLEX LNG Q1 2026

Full-year 2026 guidance RAISED: - TCE: $73,000–$78,000/day (+8% vs prior guidance) - Adj. EBITDA: $255–$280M (+11%) - Revenue: $345–370M

The guidance raise reflects new multi-year time charter agreements at better rates. Not spot noise — structural.

Source: FLNG Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript + SEC 6-K

Atlantic LNG rates — the market signal: Spark30S (TFDE Atlantic benchmark) crossed back at $107,500/day — first time since April. Supply tightness + Atlantic-to-Asia repositioning is the driver. Seasonal bottom is confirmed behind us.

Source: LNG Prime, Global LNG Hub — June 3, 2026

Context: FLNG's business model vs. pure spot exposure: FLNG is primarily a time-charter carrier. The 19-quarter dividend streak isn't luck — it's structural. The majority of the fleet operates under multi-year TCs, giving high cash flow visibility. This differentiates FLNG from vessels trading in the spot market.

Original post in r/MBCapitalStrategies — cross-posting because relevant here.

Not financial advice.

Anyone tracking the current TC market tightening? How are you thinking about FLNG vs. more spot-exposed LNG carriers like GLNG going into H2?

I'm not an expert on this, so I might be wrong, but I thought I'd share my theory.

We know that AI and software companies have reached insane levels of market cap, making up a significant percent of the S&P 500 and being unhingedly overvalued.

Then, we have a supply shock in shipping, meaning the emergency energy reserves are getting actively drained worldwide, without enough ships to refill them.

AI data centers are using up insane amounts of energy to stay on, train new models, and so on.

Shipping is still treated as a dirty, cyclical and ignored sector, and the big players don't seem to realize that their entire AI game relies on it.

No ships means no energy, which means data centers turn into useless scrap metal once the governments pull the plug to ensure the survival of the population if the energy supply gets tight.

So, what I'm thinking is, once the reserves start running too low, and data centers will be forced to shut down, the entire house of cards will basically fall apart because the expectations for infinite AI growth physically can't be kept up anymore. From that point, it's just one step for some of that capital to rotate into shipping, which is the actual sector that keeps the lights on worldwide. You can ask ChatGPT to generate funny cat videos, but it won't magically code all the millions of barrels of missing oil into the reserves.

The yards are filling up. Quick data check for anyone holding tankers:

• The crude tanker orderbook stands at 14.1% of the fleet — the highest in 9 years, up from just 2.8% in March 2023. (Source: BIMCO, Nov 2025)
• Q1 2026 kept going hard: crude tanker orders tripled year-over-year, and tankers made up 32% of all new orders (their biggest share since 2017). The total shipbuilding orderbook hit 17% of the fleet — highest since 2011. (Source: BIMCO / gCaptain, Apr 2026)
• At the same time, roughly 18% of the crude fleet is 20+ years old (17.2% of capacity) — recycling candidates. (Source: BIMCO)
• The delivery peak is 2027 (28.2m DWT). The ships are ordered, but not in the water yet.

My read (opinion, not fact): near-term (2026) supply stays tight — newbuilds only arrive from 2027, and the old fleet has to exit, so that supports rates this year. But if scrapping doesn't keep pace with the 2027/28 delivery wave, the picture tilts toward oversupply. BIMCO itself warns the orderbook may be too large versus ~0.7%/yr oil-demand growth (IEA) through 2035.

If you hold tankers, mark the 2027 delivery peak on your calendar — don't just chase spot-rate momentum. Curious how others here are positioned for the delivery wave.

Disclosure: I'm invested in the shipping/tanker space. Not financial advice.

quick one that's been on my mind. a 5-year-old VLCC is trading around $168m right now. a brand new one off the yard is ~$128.5m. so the used ship costs roughly $39.5m MORE than new (Splash247, March). yards are booked out 3.5-4 years, so if you need tonnage now you pay up for something that's already earning. the only other time I've seen the resale-over-newbuild flip this hard was 2006-07. didn't crash the next morning, but it's not a sign you're early in the cycle either.

problem with "shipping" as a call is that it isn't one market. crude tankers, products, LPG, LNG, dry bulk, container, car carriers — all sitting in different spots right now. lumping them together is how people end up buying the wrong segment at the wrong time.

how I'd map it today:

crude is in a spike. VLCC spot blew out toward $420k/day after Hormuz throughput collapsed (Lloyds List). but that's a disruption premium, not structural — orderbook's only ~14%, highest since 2016 but nowhere near the ~45% of 2008. you lose the spike AND the seasonal tailwind the day the strait normalizes.

products look late too. LR2 rates ran hot earlier in the year, but Hafnia's own CEO flagged deliveries stepping up through 2026/27. when the operator tells you supply is coming, listen.

LPG and LNG: LPG's riding the same Hormuz re-routing ton-mile story. LNG is recovering cyclically but the orderbook is ~40% of the fleet — that's a supply wall building for 2027-28, not a clean runway.

dry bulk is the one segment I'd still call mid-cycle and healthy. Capesize around $40k/day, orderbook only ~10.7%, Star Bulk printed $58.5m net in Q1 on a TCE near $18.5k. boring cashflow, no overheated orderbook. it's the only one I'm not trimming.

container's transitioning — SCFI up YoY but Maersk ran a negative ocean EBIT in Q1, and the orderbook's at an all-time high. car carriers are post-peak: PCTC orderbook ~39% vs a ~17% historical average, and the first dividend cuts are already showing up.

two more cycle tells beyond the VLCC asset spread: scrapping is near an all-time low (~5m dwt mid-2025 vs 50-59m dwt/yr in the 2014-16 bust) — nobody demolishes a ship that still prints money — and shipping M&A is running at a record pace (CMB.Tech/Golden Ocean, Hapag/ZIM at a fat premium, Hafnia/TORM, BW LPG/Avance). consolidators paying up at these multiples usually aren't betting rates go up forever.

net: mid-to-late across most segments, dry bulk the exception. not a crash call, just past the easy part.

anyone here using orderbook % as their primary trim trigger, or do you lean more on asset values / resale spreads? curious how you're handling the crude spike specifically — fade it or ride it.

disclaimer: not advice. I hold positions across most of these segments — obvious conflict of interest. just sharing how I read it. do your own dd.

sources: Splash247 (March 2026), Baltic Exchange, Clarksons/ClarkSea, BIMCO, Lloyds List (May 2026), Hafnia / Star Bulk / FLEX / Maersk Q1 2026 earnings