Platts amends basket for Americas VLCC Brazil/Uruguay-China dirty tanker assessment June 3

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, has amended the flat rate basket for the 260,000 mt Brazil/Uruguay-China assessment effective June 3 to better reflect spot market fixtures and indications.

Platts understands that spot fixtures typically negotiated on a 260,000 mt basis for this route solely load at Brazil ports. Therefore, to best represent spot activity, the basket no longer includes Uruguay as a load port and is replaced with Porto do Acu. In 2023, Brazil-loading vessels saw a 98% market share on the run, with Uruguay-loading vessels only making up 2%. Porto do Acu has also shifted to the port holding the majority of Brazil crude loaded on the run, followed by Tebig Terminal.

Additionally, Platts has excluded the discharge port Rizhao as it has not received crude oil from a Brazil-loading VLCC since 2020.

The new basket represents the average of four port to port combinations: Porto do Acu-Qingdao, Porto do Acu-Ningbo, Tebig Terminal-Qingdao, and Tebig Terminal-Ningbo.

The amendment affects the following:

These assessments appear on Platts Global Alert page 1972, on Platts Shipping Alert page 2440, in the Dirty Tankerwire and in the Platts price database under the codes above.

Please send any comments or questions to shipping@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available to the public upon request.