Tankers Avoid Gulf Transfer Zones as 37M Barrels of Capacity Halt or Divert

This is a physical-flow signal, not a sentiment one: tanker operators are voting with their hulls, and the pause-and-divert pattern around established Gulf transshipment zones suggests risk pricing is moving from insurance desks into routing decisions. The effects land first on charterers and refiners dependent on those transfer points, who face longer voyages and tighter effective tonnage. Whether the avoidance persists — or becomes a durable rerouting of Gulf-to-Asia flows — is the open question worth tracking in ship-tracking data.