A supertanker has been provisionally booked to transport oil from the Persian Gulf to India at a rate equivalent to almost nine times benchmark freight costs, an eye-watering price that reflects the shortage of available, empty vessels in the area.The very-large crude carrier, capable of handling about two million barrels of oil, will be supplied by South Korea shipowner Sinokor at 897 Worldscale points, or 897% of the benchmark, according to shipbrokers. That fee ranks as the highest so far this year, they added, asking not to be named as discussions are not public.Worldscale rates, the standard measure of charter fees in the tanker industry, are set yearly for specific routes such as Persian Gulf to China, or to Singapore. Ships are booked at a percentage — also known as points — of this underlying rate. In this case, the Sinokor booking was based on the rate for the Persian Gulf-to-Singapore route, the shipbrokers said.Sinokor did not respond to emails or telephone calls to its Seoul and Singapore offices.Having expanded aggressively in the tanker market since the end of last year, Sinokor has been among the more active players in the Persian Gulf through the war.A message from the company received by shipbrokers on Wednesday and seen by Bloomberg News offered VLCCs for the loading of oil from Iraq’s Basrah terminal by June 24. It indicated it would pass through the Strait of Hormuz with the cargo — a sign of confidence even as traffic through the waterway remains constrained.Since an interim agreement was struck between the Iran and US last week, buyers have been scrambling to secure tankers in order to load cargoes that have been stuck since the start of the Iran war in late February. Meanwhile, producers in the region have been rushing to increase exports.The availability of ships to support this revival, however, has been limited, after many tanker owners diverted their fleet to other routes during the three-month closure of the Hormuz. They can now require weeks to return to the Persian Gulf.