Oil Tanker Tycoon’s WhatsApp Messages Drive Big Market Moves

By Alex Longley, Archie Hunter and Weilun Soon (Bloomberg) — The messages from the world’s biggest supertanker owner often begin with pleasantries: “Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.”

Within minutes, the WhatsApps are the talk of the oil-tanker industry, a multibillion-dollar corner of the energy market that’s been plunged into chaos by the Iran war this year, and where word of mouth is the main way information spreads. The details vary, but the messages to shipbrokers from Sinokor Group, the South Korean company controlled by tycoon Ga-Hyun Chung, mostly boil down to the same thing — one of its vessels has just been hired at a new sky-high rate to ferry oil out of the Persian Gulf.

Some messages detail a new contract, listing the ship, counterparty and eyewatering price. Others just refer loosely to negotiations underway. The format fluctuates from terse strings of numbers and names to full sentences and florid signoffs: “Very respectfully. Thank you very much and best regards,” concludes one message sent to brokers in August, and seen by Bloomberg. Usually, in the days that follow, the global benchmark price set by London’s Baltic Exchange takes another leap higher.

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