Oil tankers exporting Kazakh and Russian crude from ports in the Black Sea are contending with spiraling delays when navigating Turkey’s key shipping straits, stalling the delivery of millions of barrels of supplies to refineries on the Mediterranean Sea and beyond, Bloomberg reported.
The lengthening queues to pass through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits are due to a change in rules back in September requiring more vessels to be escorted by tugboats, according to Tribeca Shipping, a local port agent. It estimates that tankers holding about 39 million barrels of oil are backed up. Bad weather has also contributed.
"Tankers are waiting about 13 days to pass through the shipping straits in order to exit the Black Sea, the longest waiting times since at least 2014 and more than double the norm, according to Tribeca. Vessels moving in the opposite direction are waiting about 15 days," Bloomberg writes.
