About WetCargo

Where the numbers come from

Each price is worked out from a knowledge base built from free, public sources:

• Sea routes: more than 17,000 distances between around 160 oil ports, measured along a global shipping-lane network, with port positions from the NGA World Port Index.
• Ports and berths: depth, length and tanker-size limits published by port authorities and terminal operators. See the ports.
• Crude grades: API gravity and sulphur from Eurostat import statistics and published assays; Russian prices from public price reports. See the catalog.
• Freight and costs: tanker earnings and running costs from the published results of listed tanker companies, canal tolls from the canal authorities, fuel prices from the US EIA and the European Commission's Weekly Oil Bulletin.
• Trade and straits: UN Comtrade trade flows, the EIA and IMF PortWatch on chokepoints. See the statistics and the chokepoints.

Every value keeps its source, the date it was read and a quality class, from A (an official primary source) to E (not available). The pages show them next to the data.

How a price is built

The price calculator plans the voyage the way a chartering desk would. It turns barrels into tonnes using the grade's density, picks the smallest tanker class that carries the cargo, takes the shortest sea route with the straits on it, and counts the days at sea and in port.

The total is the cargo, plus freight, plus EU emissions allowances on European voyages, canal tolls, port calls, our margin and any extra services you add. Every line is shown in whole dollars and adds up exactly to the total. The server works the price out again when you send a request, so a price cannot be changed in the browser.