For owners of the supertankers capable of hauling more than 2m barrels of crude around the world, the crash in oil prices has been good for business. After suffering five years of flatlining rates and shrinking profits, operators of Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) are enjoying strong trading conditions for the first time since the financial crisis, when a glut of tankers came on the market just as demand collapsed. Since the turn of the year, the cost of hiring a VLCC has jumped more than 50 per cent, with the rate for shipping oil from Saudi Arabia to Japan — the benchmark supertanker route — rising to $93,600 a day, a seven-year seasonal high.