With trade policy chaos causing spikes in blood pressure but slumps in most other indices, the Baltic Dirty Tanker Index bucked the trend with a 15% increase between March 24 and April 24. The charge was led by aframaxes, with the Baltic Exchange’s aframax index rising 44% between those dates to $46,347, ahead of a 21% rise in suezmax average earnings to $62,639 and an 11% rise in VLCC average earnings to $51,123. The surge in aframax earnings was based on a recovery in demand in Europe. Day rates from the North Sea to Germany rose by 120% over the 30 days to 24 April, to $55,065, compared to only an 8% increase in the rate from the North Sea to the UK. There must have been some kind of sea change in German industrial strategy. Across the pond, day rates for afras between the Caribs and US Gulf rose 66% to $48,186 while rates for afras shipping US crude to northwest Europe added 31% to reach $46,507 on the back of a general increase in demand for tonnage. Suezmax rates on the new Guyana to ARA voyage added a buoyant 39% to reach an enticing $54,152 per day on the back of firm tonnage demand in the Atlantic and growing output from Guyana as well as Brazil. By contrast, cross-Med rates for suezmax have remained essentially unchanged for a month at around $42,000 per day. Even as China and the US eye each other ever more warily, the US continues to export crude oil to the Middle Kingdom at a steady rate, with freight rates also steady, as TCEs were $45,941 on April 24, just 1% higher than a month earlier though they did edge over $48,100 briefly on April 7. On the higher volume Mid-East to China voyage, VLCC daily earnings rose 20% over the month to April 24 to reach a tidy $55,010. Seasonality suggests that crude oil tanker rates should fall from here to a low at the end of Q3, but macro-economic and political woes might make the fall deeper and harder. Oil demand and thus tanker demand tends to track GDP growth and most organisations are downgrading expectations for this year. The IEA and EIA now expect oil demand growth of less than 1m barrels per day in 2025, with the IEA slashing its March estimate of 2025 demand growth by 300,000 barrels per day to 730,000 barrels per day as “escalating trade tensions have negatively impacted the economic outlook.” The IEA says half the cut in demand growth comes from China and the US as a direct consequence of Trump’s trade war. It points out that oil demand grew by 1.2m barrels per day in Q1, its best quarterly performance for two years. The IEA has also cut its 2026 oil demand growth forecast to 690,000 barrels per day. The US EIA will not have pleased Trumpwith its 400,000 barrels per day cut to its demand growth forecast for this year to 900,000 barrels per day and a further 100,000 barrels per day cut to its 2026 demand growth forecast, now 1m barrels per day. The EIA has stressed that this forecast is subject to “significant uncertainty” from trade tariffs. Ever the optimist, OPEC expects oil demand to grow by of 1.3m barrels per day this year. OPEC has agreed to open the spigots, seemingly in an attempt to protect market share. After Kazakhstan said it would prioritise national interest over OPEC+ prescriptions, it looks like the cartel’s three-year production cap is going to disintegrate this year. Oil markets will be oversupplied, but oil prices are not collapsing as the weakening US dollar shores up commodity prices. The IEA expects “global oil inventories will increase starting in the mid