Shipping, insurance costs for crude oil increase significantly: OPEC

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday highlighted an unprecedented surge in shipping and insurance costs for crude oil.

According to OPEC's latest pamphlet, tanker rates have risen sharply across all routes since the beginning of 2026, with some routes recording about a 12-fold increase in shipping costs.

The pamphlet uses large crude carriers sailing from the Middle East to East Asia as an example. OPEC said the freight rate climbed from 3.18 U.S. dollars per barrel at the end of January to 37.13 U.S. dollars per barrel at the end of October. Meanwhile, the insurance cost soared more than 200 times, jumping from 0.06 U.S. dollar to 12.29 U.S. dollars per barrel over the same period.

The combined cost of freight and insurance now accounts for roughly 30 percent of the total cost of crude products, compared with the normal level of about 3 percent.

"These exceptionally elevated costs are, in turn, transmitted across the entire value chain. They increase and prolong the cost burden on producing and consuming countries and place additional inflationary pressures on the global economy," said OPEC.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, said on Thursday that it will conduct an outright reverse repo operation worth 300 billion yuan (about 42.2 billion U.S. dollars), in a move aimed at keeping liquidity ample in the banking system.

The operation will run for three months and be conducted through fixed-quantity, interest-rate bidding with multiple price awards, according to the central bank's announcement.

Outright reverse repo operations -- a tool the central bank introduced in October 2024 to manage liquidity in the national banking system -- are conducted each month with a tenor of no more than one year.

These operations have enriched the country's monetary policy toolkit, complementing previous measures such as temporary repos, temporary reverse repos, and the purchase and sale of treasury bonds.