Captains earn about $100,000 monthly to sail through Hormuz

The direct cost for oil is negligible. A $50,000 transit bonus spread across a supertanker cargo of about 2 million barrels adds only a couple of cents per barrel, far less than what owners pay in freight and war-risk insurance. The more significant signal is that Gulf supply now depends on a labour bottleneck as well as a physical one, meaning flows can recover while the risk of sudden interruption remains high. That helps explain why Brent crude maintains a substantial premium over WTI even as Saudi exports pick up. An attack that triggers crew refusals or forces owners to stop sailings would cut seaborne crude availability faster than damage to onshore facilities.

Gulf oil still transits the Strait of Hormuz, but only because shipowners are now paying crews like soldiers of fortune to take it there.

• The Financial Times, citing three sources, reported that Gulf tanker captains can earn about $100,000 a month plus a $50,000 bonus per Hormuz transit.
• Normal pay is about $1,500 a month for ordinary crew and $15,000 for captains, with ordinary crew now receiving at least four to six times their usual wage.
• Pay typically doubles in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman and rises further with each Hormuz crossing.
• The premiums follow stepped-up Iranian attacks on shipping, with the International Maritime Organization estimating that 24 seafarers have died in the region since the war began.
• Crews can refuse voyages into the designated war zone, making staffing a growing constraint on Gulf oil exports.

The Financial Times, citing three sources close to owners and crew, reported that shipowners are paying tanker crews extraordinary hazard premiums to keep oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Captains can earn about $100,000 a month plus a $50,000 bonus for each transit.

These payments aim to persuade seafarers to stay aboard as Iran steps up attacks on vessels, while Gulf producers work to keep crude flowing through the world's most important oil chokepoint. Under normal conditions, the FT said, ordinary crew earn around $1,500 a month and captains about $15,000. Pay typically doubles in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman and rises further for each Hormuz transit, with ordinary crew now receiving at least four to six times their usual wage. One source told the newspaper that seafarers were almost being treated like mercenaries.

The figures mark a sharp escalation from earlier in the conflict. In July, Bloomberg reported that Sinokor Group, the world's largest owner of supertankers, had offered its crews an extra six months' salary for a round trip of about a month to load crude in Saudi Arabia or Iraq and discharge in the Gulf of Oman. At the time, crewing sources said other owners were generally offering less, although bonuses were still significant.

The premiums reflect how hard it has become to keep ships staffed. Hormuz has been designated a warlike operations area, which gives seafarers the right to refuse a voyage and return home at the company's expense; replacing crew who leave can take weeks. The danger is real. The International Maritime Organization estimates 24 seafarers have died in attacks across the region since the war began, and shipping executives put the chance of a vessel being hit during a crossing at about one in 20, Bloomberg reported last week.

A tanker captain who spoke to Bloomberg described transits made with the ship's location transponder turned off, the vessel hugging the Omani coast and its decks barricaded with sandbags against drones and missiles. He was paid a multiple of his normal salary on a contract a month shorter than usual. Much of the world's tanker workforce comes from lower-income countries such as the Philippines and India, where such sums can be life-changing.

The arrangement shows how Gulf exports are being sustained: not by any easing of the threat, but by owners pricing the danger high enough that crews will accept it. Each fresh attack is likely to push that price higher, and the next test will be whether rising pay keeps pace with rising risk.