Shipping's Spot-Rate Model Could Collide With Green Agenda The past two months have offered a textbook example of just how much stock investors crave the volatility of ocean shipping spot markets. Spot rates for very large crude carriers (VLCCs, tankers designed to carry 2 million barrels of crude oil) skyrocketed from $50,000 per day at the end of September to around $200,000 per day on Oct. 11, dropped back to $60,000 by mid-November and have now popped back above $100,000 per day. It's hard to find other markets to bet on that gyrate to this extreme. Tanker stocks with exposure to these spot rates have surged in response. This deep-seated focus on spot rates — not just among public and private investors but also among commodity charterers — could complicate plans to reduce the shipping industry's carbon footprint in the years ahead, a move that will almost certainly require much more time-charter coverage. Penalizing Period Charters Investors react negatively when ship owners do not have enough exposure to soaring spot rates. Case in point: the stock of Tsakos Energy Navigation or TEN (NYSE: TNP ), one of the largest tanker owners in the public market, which has lagged its compatriots, not just because it focuses on smaller vessel classes, but also because of its higher time-charter coverage.