Bermudian-based oil tanker operators are seeing their profit margins soar as the energy crisis sparked by the war in the Middle East boosts demand for their services.

Share prices of companies including Nordic American Tankers and Teekay Corporation have surged with the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz - through which about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas supply is normally shipped.

Yesterday, Herbjorn Hansson, chief executive officer of NAT, gave some detail on skyrocketing daily rates for its fleet of 20 suezmax tankers.

In an update to shareholders and investors, titled “A tumultuous situation creates strong results”, Mr Hansson said the first quarter of this year was expected to be “much better” than the fourth quarter of 2025, when average daily earnings per vessel were $35,000.

Examples he gave included a voyage from the Gulf of Mexico via the Cape of Good Hope to the Far East. The Time Charter Equivalent - a shipping industry metric that standardises voyage charter earnings into a daily rate - was $175,000. NAT estimates its operating costs per vessel are about $9,000 per day.

Other TCEs mentioned by Mr Hansson include West Africa to Asia ($77,000 over 65 days); and from the Baltic to Asia ($150,000 over 60 days).

Rates were lucrative even before the war, involving Israel, the United States and Iran, broke out on February 28.

In two charters concluded before that date, NAT recorded a TCE of $41,000 over 58 days for the voyage from Guyana to Europe, and $94,000 over 54 days to ship from West Africa to Asia.

Jens Alers, a Bermudian-based independent maritime consultant, cautioned that the $9,000-per-day operating cost cited by NAT may not represent a complete picture of the “break-even cost”.

“Opex refer to the direct ship management expenses such as crew wages and ancillary employment cost as well as crew travel, insurance premiums, lube oil, technical items (repair and maintenance, stores and spares), and compliance cost for a ship, such as classification and vettings,” Mr Alers explained.

“However, opex typically do not include voyage-related cost such as bunkers (ship fuel), port charges, as well as finance cost (interest on loans), and general and administrative expenses. Once these cost items are added to the opex, one arrives at the true break-even cost for the ship.

“Having said all that, even once all those cost items have been added, NAT can certainly still claim to be generating significant profits in the current market.”

Shares of NAT closed 4.1 per cent higher on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday at $5.47. The stock is up around 60 per cent so far this year and more than 110 per cent over the past 12 months.

Teekay Corporation operates a fleet of 34 double-hulled tankers. Its shares gained 3.4 per cent on the NYSE yesterday. Teekay stock is up by more than 30 per cent this year to date, and up by close to 80 per cent over the past 12 months.

The market for oil tankers is highly cyclical.

Hundreds of vessels and some 20,000 seafarers have remained stranded inside the Persian Gulf since Tehran threatened to attack ships attempting to leave via the Strait of Hormuz.

Countries at the United Nations’ ‌shipping agency ⁠agreed last week to work towards a safe maritime corridor to evacuate commercial ships from the Gulf and protect seafarers stranded due to the war on Iran, Reuters reported. No time-frame has been given for the initiative.