Why a trader cares
Transport cost can strengthen, weaken, or complicate a physical-market story. It should be read alongside the commodity curve and visible vessel movement.
MarketsFreight & Shipping
Transport economicsLive
Connect freight pricing to the barrels and routes behind the commodity move.
Freight & Shipping combines tanker-freight benchmarks and historical context with crude tanker and LNG carrier activity.
Question answered
Are freight economics and vessel activity confirming the physical-market narrative?
Built for more than one level of market experience
Start simple. Keep the professional context.
Every screen preserves the instrument, period, unit, source, and limitation while explaining why the evidence matters.
Start here01
Identify the observation before interpreting it.
Read the instrument, unit, timestamp, period, and source first. A weekly stock estimate and a five-minute futures quote answer different questions.
Desk read02
Compare level, change, and historical context.
The current value matters less without its direction of travel, seasonal baseline, related markets, and the catalyst that moved expectations.
Professional use03
Demand cross-source confirmation and preserve uncertainty.
Treat every dataset as evidence with a release lag, methodology, revision risk, and known blind spots. The workflow should be reproducible after the fact.
Component guide
What each component means—and how a desk reads it.
Definitions stay plain enough to learn from, while the desk read preserves the mechanism, cadence, and source a professional user expects.
TD3C
In plain English
A dirty-tanker freight benchmark for Middle East Gulf to China, commonly associated with VLCC economics.
Professional read
Use it as route-specific transport evidence. A move can reflect tonnage, voyage risk, bunker costs, or cargo demand—not just crude direction.
- Cadence
- Daily listed-futures observations
- Source
- CME/NYMEX freight contracts via Databento
TD20
In plain English
A dirty-tanker benchmark for West Africa to the UK Continent, representing a different basin and vessel-demand pattern.
Professional read
Divergence from TD3C can reveal route-specific dislocation rather than a synchronized global freight move.
- Cadence
- Daily listed-futures observations
- Source
- CME/NYMEX freight contracts via Databento
Freight-unit conversion
In plain English
Worldscale-linked or route-priced inputs are converted into the displayed $/metric-ton equivalent with the calculation shown.
Professional read
The converted number is transport economics, not the outright price of crude oil. Keep route assumptions and units visible.
- Cadence
- With each eligible observation
- Source
- Contract metadata and route conversion inputs
Historical percentile
In plain English
The current route value is ranked against its own retained history.
Professional read
A high percentile indicates expensive freight relative to that route's history; it does not prove freight must mean-revert.
- Cadence
- Daily
- Source
- Enerlytics freight history
Commodity and vessel comparison
In plain English
Normalized views compare freight with crude or gas moves and connect price with observed ship activity.
Professional read
Use percentage or standardized changes across different units, then verify the mechanism with AIS and the commodity curve.
- Cadence
- Daily freight; two-hour AIS summaries
- Source
- Freight history and terrestrial AIS
What data it uses
The evidence underneath the screen.
- TD3C and TD20 futures-derived pricing
- Historical levels and percentiles
- Crude tanker activity
- LNG shipping activity
- Commodity-versus-freight comparisons
How Enerlytics interprets it
Method before conclusion.
- 01
Shows the freight-unit conversion behind $/mt values
- 02
Separates freight futures pricing from commodity futures pricing
- 03
Uses normalized comparisons where units differ
How it connects
Evidence moves through a workflow.
- 01Route benchmark
- 02Freight curve
- 03Historical context
- 04Vessel evidence
- 05Commodity confirmation
What not to infer
A freight move can reflect route-specific constraints, vessel supply, or risk premia; it is not a standalone crude or gas direction signal.
Worked market workflow
Read route economics without confusing them with crude price
Freight is a physical-market input with its own units, seasonality, vessel supply, and regional causes.
- 1
Name the route
Start with TD3C or TD20 and the trade lane it represents.
- 2
Verify units
Inspect the displayed conversion and underlying freight convention.
- 3
Place historically
Use percentile and prior ranges to judge how unusual the move is.
- 4
Confirm physically
Compare vessel activity, chokepoint conditions, and the relevant crude curve.
Methodology and limitations
Trust comes from showing the seams.
Route-specific by design
TD3C and TD20 are not generic tanker prices. Enerlytics preserves the route label and avoids comparing raw freight dollars directly with crude or gas prices.
Verified production coverage
Coverage reviewed against the production data store on October 2, 2026. Live totals continue to grow.
- More than 62,000 TD3C and TD20 observations are retained in production.
- The current route history extends back to September 2021.
Primary references
Enerlytics links the underlying methodology so customers can distinguish a product interpretation from the source definition.
See the product
A real Enerlytics workflow—not a conceptual mockup.
Weekly research, recaps, and video explainers
See the evidence used in a real market conversation.
Enerlytics publishes weekly market recaps, component explainers, and thesis walkthroughs. For Freight & Shipping, the recurring desk question is: Did this week's freight move reflect a broad tanker squeeze, a route-specific disruption, or a temporary risk premium?
Weekly market notes →Written recaps tied to the same evidence workflow.Public signal reviews →Current states with accountability and limitations.Video recaps on X →Short market recaps, chart walkthroughs, and thesis updates.Explainers on Threads →Component education and the reasoning behind each market read.
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