Excerpts from an article Sam Chambers published 7/19/2021 on Splash247. com. Here’s the complete article. 
“VLCC spot earnings averaged just $500 a day on the benchmark TD3C trade between the Middle East and China during the first half of the year on a slowsteaming, non-scrubber, non-eco basis, marking the lowest half yearly result this century according to tanker broker Gibson.
“VLCCs have been the worst performer in the tanker sector, earning less than even handy/MR tankers on benchmark round voyage trades.
“According to Kpler, during the first half of the year total Middle East crude exports, which account for the lion’s share of all VLCC trade, averaged 15.25m barrels per day, down by 2.1m barrels per day compared to H1 2020 and even more if compared to H1 2019.
[…]
“Scrubber-equipped vessels have been able to generate increasingly higher returns due to rising bunker prices. For scrubber-equipped VLCC tonnage the earnings premium on TD3C nearly doubled from $4,000 a day to $7,000 a day over the first six months, even though absolute freight/TCE levels were much higher in H1 2020 compared to H1 2021.
