Insurance By Distance

15 May 2026: Asia’s oil diversification drive can redraw global tanker routes. For many decades, mapping the oil flows in Asia was simple. The largest consumers in the region, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and later, China and India had limited or no domestic crude oil production. At the same time, the Middle East, which was geographically fairly close, had abundant resources. Despite the occasional regional conflicts in the Middle East, the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf was deemed both reliable and competitively priced and Asian refiners had little incentive to diversify their sources of crude. That is, until March 2026, when the Strait of Hormuz closed as a result of the war on Iran. Now, the same countries in Asia are looking to diversify their sources of crude oil supply. In this Tanker Opinion, we will discuss to what extent this can be achieved and what the potential implications are for the global tanker market.