Long Voyages in a Fragmented World: The Evolution of Tankers in International Shipping News 11/06/2026 O ver the past four years, tanker markets have been reshaped by geopolitical shocks, with freight volatility increasingly driven by inefficiencies rather than pure cycles. The Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered a major reconfiguration of crude and product flows, extending voyage distances and tightening effective fleet supply. This was compounded by disruptions such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which altered routing, increasing vessel supply requirements. Outside geopolitics, shifts in new refining capacity, crude oil production growth, particularly in the Americas, and infrastructure developments have reinforced longer-haul trade patterns. More recently, constraints around the Strait of Hormuz have added further uncertainty. Overall the market is characterised by structurally longer distances due to fragmented trade flows and a multi-tiered segmented fleet especially in the crude market. Longer routes and tighter fleet driven by geopolitical fragmentation The first major shift followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, following EU and US bans on Russian oil that triggered a fundamental reshuffling of crude and product flows during the start of 2023.Russian crude moved east toward China and India, while Europe increased reliance on the Atlantic Basin. In products, middle distillates saw the largest disruption: Russian diesel was redirected to more distant markets such as West Africa and Brazil, while Europe turned toward the Middle East, India, and the US. The breakdown of the short-haul Russia–Northwest Europe trade forced longer-haul movements both out of Russia and into Europe. A second disruption came from the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea during the start of 2024. While origin–destination patterns remained broadly intact, routing shifted materially. Clean products were most affected, as Europe’s dependence on middle distillates—particularly jet fue