Worldscale is a unified system of establishing payment of
freight rate
A freight rate (historically and in ship chartering simply freight) is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport (truck, ship, train, aircraft), the w ...
for a given
oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...
's cargo. Worldscale was established in November 1952 by
London Tanker Brokers’ Panel on the request of British Petroleum and
Shell as an average total cost of shipping oil from one port to another by ship. A large table was created as result.
The same scale is used today, although it was merged with the American Tanker Rate Schedule (ATRS) in 1969. By 2002, the table included the average cost of 320,000 voyages of different combinations of one load and one discharge port to five loads and ten discharge ports. Worldscale is produced by Worldscale Association (NYC) Inc. for the Americas and by Worldscale Association (London) Ltd. for the rest of the world. The freight for a given ship and voyage is normally expressed in a percentage of the published rate and is supposed to reflect the freight market demand at the time of fixing.
Following are some samples.
In negotiating a price to pay, the above table is referred to as WS100 or 100% of Worldscale. The actual price negotiated between shipowner and charterer can range from 1% to 1000% and is referred to respectively as WS1 to WS1000, depending on how much loss the first is willing to take on that voyage and how much the latter is willing to pay.
See also
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Oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...
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Ship transport
Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throug ...
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Affreightment
Affreightment (from freight) is a legal term relating to shipping.
A ''contract of affreightment'' is a contract between a ''ship-owner'' and a charterer, in which the ship-owner agrees to carry goods for the charterer in the ship, ''or'' to giv ...
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Chartering (shipping)
Chartering is an activity within the Maritime transport, shipping industry whereby a ship-owner, shipowner hires out the use of their vessel to a charterer. The contract between the parties is called a charterparty (from the French ''"charte part ...
References
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External links
Worldscale Association websiteChapter in ''Maritime Economics''Worldscale goes to the InternetWorldscale section in ''International Energy Markets''
{{Ship chartering
+World