Clarifies change in assessed MR tonnage size from January 16

Effective January 16, 2012, Platts has changed the basis volume assessed for Medium Range (MR) tanker freight rates from 30,000 mt to 35,000 mt for the following East of Suez routes: AG to Japan, AG to India, AG to Singapore, AG to Korea, AG to East Africa, India to Singapore, India to Japan and India to South Korea.

These rates are published in the Platts Clean Tankerwire and Platts Global Alert Page 136.

The changes are a result of industry feedback that current MR tankers have a larger cubic capacity, and 35,000 mt stem sizes are now predominantly chartered to ferry refined products such as naphtha, gasoil, jet fuel and gasoline.

Platts will normalize 30,000 mt tanker fixtures to a 35,000 mt basis. Platts had initially proposed to change the assessed MR volume on January 3, 2012, but that was delayed to January 16, 2012.

Please send all comments or questions to asia_tankers@platts.com and pricegroup@platts.com.