Platts removes transit day in Turkish Straits Delay assessment methodology

S&P Global Platts has removed an additional transit day in its Turkish Straits northbound and southbound delay assessment methodology, effective April 1, 2021, so that the assessments now reflect only transit delays, compared with the full transit time previously.

Additionally, Platts has begun publishing Turkish Straits delays in half-day increments from April 1. Previously, these were only assessed in full-day increments.

Platts data indicates that transit through the Turkish Straits typically takes one day in the absence of any delays, and market practice is to waive the demurrage costs associated with that standard one-day transit time and only charge for additional delays.

Platts first proposed to remove the additional day of transit in a subscriber note published Nov. 13, 2020; this was updated to include a proposal to publish the assessments in half-day increments in a note published Dec. 10, 2020: http://plts.co/4VIq50Ee824

These changes impact the following assessments:

These assessments appear in Platts Dirty Tankerwire; on Platts Shipping Alert page 1430; Platts Global Alert pages 1960 and 918; and in the Platts price database under the codes above.

As a result of this change, Platts is now fully reflecting the Turkish Straits delay assessments in its FOB Black Sea crude netback assessments. This will have no impact on the price of the crude netback assessments, as Platts was removing the additional transit day from its crude netback calculations prior to April 1, 2021.

The related FOB Black Sea crude assessments are:

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