Platts proposes to amend sailing time used in Dated Brent WTI Midland deviation, demurrage fallback mechanisms

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, proposes to amend the sailing time used in its deviation and demurrage fallback mechanisms for WTI Midland CIF Rotterdam cargoes in Dated Brent to 19 days, effective for trades from May 1, 2026, onwards.

Platts deviation and demurrage fallback mechanisms currently assume a 17-day sailing time between the US Gulf Coast and Rotterdam.

In practice, this would mean in the absence of agreement on deviation or demurrage costs, counterparties would use the lower of Platts Aframax tanker or USGC demurrage assessments respectively in the period 24-29 days before the arrival range and the charterparty rate to determine reasonable costs.

The period of 24-29 days prior to the arrival range would be equivalent to what Platts understands the typical USGC Aframax fixing period to be of 5-10 days prior to USGC loading and assuming a longer 19-day sailing time to Rotterdam.

Platts deviation and demurrage fallback mechanisms currently use the period 22-27 days before arrival, assuming a 17-day sailing time between the US Gulf Coast and Rotterdam.

This proposal follows consistent feedback from market participants that a longer sail time would be more reflective of typical transatlantic Aframax voyage times. It would also align with updated Stasco BFOETM 2022 v1.3 terms for March 2026 Cash BFOE cargoes onwards.

Under the proposal, the amended fallbacks would operate as follows, with all other aspects of the existing methodology remaining unchanged:

DEMURRAGE

Counterparties would use Platts Aframax USGC demurrage assessment (ADERD00) for the amended period of 24-29 days prior to the delivery laycan to calculate demurrage costs.

DEVIATION

In the case of deviations within Northwest Europe, counterparties would use an average of Platts Worldscale assessments for the US Gulf Coast-UK Continent route [TDUCG00] within the amended period of 24-29 days prior to the delivery laycan to calculate reasonable deviation costs.

In the case of deviations to the Mediterranean, counterparties would use an average of the Platts Worldscale assessments for US Gulf Coast-UK Continent (TDUCG00) and US Gulf Coast-Mediterranean (TDUWS00) within the amended period 24-29 days prior to the delivery laycan to calculate deviation costs.

In all cases, if no agreement can be reached between buyer and seller, counterparties would be expected to use the lower of the Platts fallback mechanism and charterparty rate to determine reasonable costs, in line with existing methodology.

Please send all feedback, comments, or questions to europe_crude@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com by March 31, 2026.

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.