By Fairway ETA Editorial · Marine engineering team · Last reviewed: 2026-07-13

Sources and methodology

Bunker prices are indicative levels anchored to Ship & Bunker daily port assessments. LNG spot freight (Spark30S, Spark25S) is compiled weekly from Spark Commodities / LNG Prime public reporting. Dry bulk and tanker freight indices (BDI, BCI, BPI, BDTI, BCTI) track the Baltic Exchange's published index definitions and route baskets. Crude oil benchmarks track the Brent, WTI, and Dubai futures contracts. Newbuilding and demolition prices are compiled market-range assessments drawn from public industry reporting, not a single vendor feed. The hub is not a real-time pricing service — these are daily reference values, refreshed regularly, with a structural emphasis on consistency rather than tick-level precision. Not for commercial trading or fixture decisions.

What each category tells you

The bunker section is operational: it tells a chartering desk or voyage planner the differential between Singapore and Rotterdam VLSFO, between MGO and HSFO, between hubs in the same region. Freight indices are commercial: BDI movements tell a fleet operator whether the dry bulk market is tightening, FBX tells a freight forwarder where container spot is heading. Newbuild and scrap prices read longer-term: ordering activity at the yards versus demolition pace at the breakers — together, the supply-side picture for the next five to ten years.

Three pieces of context when reading the numbers

First, indices are constructed, not observed. The Baltic Dry Index is a weighted basket of basket-routes, with weights that have shifted across methodology revisions. When BDI moves five percent in a day, the move comes from a small number of route-segments doing most of the work. Second, bunker prices vary by physical port, grade, and delivery method — the headline VLSFO Singapore number obscures a real spread between bonded barge delivery, alongside-pier supply, and ex-wharf pricing. Third, newbuild and scrap prices tend to lag the freight cycle. Operators do not order ships into a falling market, and they do not scrap ships out of a rising one.

Reading the data

The hub is built for cross-checking, not for trading signals. The most useful read is usually the spread or divergence between two numbers that should move together — crude versus bunker, BDI versus newbuild, container freight versus tanker freight. When the spread opens, something physical is happening underneath the headlines, and that is usually where the analysis pieces in Maritime Insights pick up the thread.