VLCC Orders Hit a Record Pace in 2026 as Tanker Owners Bet the Hormuz Disruption Will Last

Tanker owners have ordered more very large crude carriers this year than at any point in more than a decade, and the count keeps climbing. Estimates vary by broker. One puts 2026 VLCC orders at 217 by early September, against 93 for all of 2025. Another counts 164 by mid-September, up from 83. Clarksons had 150 in the first half alone. Whatever count you use, the pace has more than doubled.

The VLCC orderbook now stands at somewhere between 262 and 302 ships, or 25 to 35 percent of the active fleet. The crude tanker orderbook across all sizes is around 130 million deadweight tons, 27 percent of the fleet.

Why owners are ordering

The obvious answer is money. Spot VLCC earnings this year have ranged from about $175,000 to more than $450,000 a day. In late March the Middle East to China benchmark hit an all-time high of $423,736 a day, up 94 percent in a single week. Fixtures that actually ran the Hormuz gauntlet printed even higher, near $470,000 a day.

Rates have come off those peaks. By May the market had settled at around $100,000 a day, still double the year before. That's still very strong money for a ship that costs about $130 million to build.

The less obvious answer is tonne-miles. When Hormuz closed, VLCC export volumes fell sharply, down 36 percent to 14.4 million barrels a day over the first eight weeks. But voyages got much longer. Asian refiners that used to load at Ras Tanura now load at Galveston, Brazil and West Africa. The US Gulf to Ningbo run is 2.6 times the distance from Ras Tanura to Ningbo. Atlantic-to-Pacific voyages went from 22 percent of VLCC volumes to 35 percent. Fewer barrels on longer trips still means a lot of ships at sea.

Then there are the trapped ships. Around 57 VLCCs, roughly a tenth of the global fleet, were stuck inside the Gulf when the strait shut. Those hulls are effectively out of the market.

Who is building them

China. Of 102 VLCCs ordered worldwide in the first five months of 2026, 89 went to Chinese yards. Hengli Heavy Industry took 52 of them. Korean yards are winning a share at the high end: Hanwha Ocean has signed at around $130 million a ship. The Korean benchmark newbuild price was $129 million on September 10, up from about $125.5 million late last year and far above the 2016-2017 trough of $85 to $90 million.

The delivery schedule is lumpy. About 20 VLCCs are due in 2027. Then roughly 199 in 2028 and 193 in 2029, before dropping to around 32 in 2030.

The risk in the numbers

That 2028-2029 bulge is the part that worries people. If Hormuz reopens in the next year and trade patterns drift back toward the Gulf, the tonne-mile boost fades just as nearly 400 new VLCCs hit the water. The market has seen this before. The last big VLCC ordering wave ended in a rate collapse.

Owners argue the fleet needs renewal regardless. More than 15 percent of VLCCs are over 20 years old, some estimates say 20 percent. In a normal market, many would already be scrapped. They aren't, because the sanctioned and shadow fleets keep old tankers trading, and high rates give owners no reason to sell for scrap.

So the orderbook is two bets at once. One is that the Gulf stays disrupted or at least expensive for years. The other is that a lot of old tonnage finally leaves the fleet before 2028. If both come true, owners look smart. If Hormuz reopens early and the old ships keep trading, 2029 could be ugly.