Platts amends sailing time used in Dated Brent WTI Midland deviation, demurrage fallback mechanisms

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, has amended 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 previously assumed a 17-day sailing time between the US Gulf Coast and Rotterdam.

In practice, this means in the absence of agreement on deviation or demurrage costs, counterparties should now 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 is 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 previously used the period 22-27 days before arrival, assuming a 17-day sailing time between the US Gulf Coast and Rotterdam.

This decision follows consistent feedback from market participants that a longer sail time would better reflect typical transatlantic Aframax voyage times. It also aligns with updated Stasco BFOETM 2022 v1.3 terms effective from March 2026 Cash BFOE cargoes onwards.

This follows a decision note published April 2.

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

DEMURRAGE

Counterparties should 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 should 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 should 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 are expected to use the lower of the Platts fallback mechanism and charterparty rate to determine reasonable costs, in line with existing methodology.

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