Oil tanker charter rates skyrocketed in the U.S. with refiners scrambling for ships to store fuel that has nowhere to go due to a cyberattack on the country’s main pipeline.
Companies such as Marathon Petroleum Corp, Valero Energy Corp and Phillips 66 were in the process of chartering several oil tankers for floating storage, according to shipbrokers that asked not to be identified. Ships can serve as offshore tanks during unexpected oversupply situations, such as last week’s shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline that halted fuel flows from refineries to customers along the East Coast.
