Maritime & Shipping

January 22, 2025

Platts to launch new Red Sea-East China liquid chemicals freight assessment

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will launch two new liquid chemical freight assessments from the Middle East, basis the Red Sea, to East China, effective Feb. 21.

The changes are in line with a two-tier market structure observed in freight from the Red Sea to East China and Arabian Gulf to East China following higher shipping costs seen for transit through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Platts originally proposed these new assessments on Jan. 3 in the subscriber note published here: https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/pricing-benchmarks/our-methodology/subscriber-notes/010325-platts-proposes-new-red-sea-east-china-liquid-aromatics-freight-assessment. The effective date has been moved to Feb. 21 from the originally proposed Feb. 14.

The new assessments will reflect cargoes of 5,000 mt-7,000 mt and 10,000 mt-12,000 mt.

Details of the new assessment are as follows:

Product Liquid Aromatics Freight
Route Middle East basis Red Sea to East China
Ports

Red Sea : Yanbu, Rabigh

East China : Zhangjiagang, Shanghai, Jiangyin, Nantong, Ningbo, Nanjing, Zhenjiang
UOM $/mt

The existing Middle East-East China assessments will continue to reflect liquid chemicals freight rates from the Middle East, basis Arabian Gulf, to East China. Platts will spell out the basis of these existing assessments to clearly differentiate them from the ones launching in February.

Existing Route Name New Route Name Cargo Size
Middle East-Taiwan Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-Taiwan 10-12 kt
Middle East-India Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-India 2-3 kt
Middle East-Southeast Asia Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-Southeast Asia 5-7 kt
Middle East-Southeast Asia Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-Southeast Asia 10-12 kt
Middle East-East China Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-East China 5-7 kt
Middle East-India Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-India 10-12 kt
Middle East-East China Middle East basis Arabian Gulf-East China 10-12 kt
India-Middle East India-Middle East basis Arabian Gulf 5-7 kt

Ports in the Arabian Gulf would include Al Jubail (Saudi Arabia), Messai'eed(Qatar), Kuwait (Kuwait), Sohar (Oman) and Jebel Ali (UAE), while those in the Red Sea would include Yanbu and Rabigh (Saudi Arabia).

The chemicals freight assessments out of Middle East will follow the Platts India publication calendar, taking into consideration price information gathered up to the close of the assessment process at 4:30 pm Singapore time.

The assessments will appear on PCA 643, 644 and Asia PetrochemicalScan and on Platts Connect.

Details of ports considered in the assessments will be available in the Specifications Guide Global Freight https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/PlattsContent/_assets/_files/en/our-methodology/methodology-specifications/global_freight.pdf), while the outdated notes on the fixed pages will be removed.

Please send any comments, feedback, and questions to petchems@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com .

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