01

Required elements

The desk quotes or reviews an offer only when the price basis carries all eight elements below. An enquiry missing any of them is returned for completion before terms are discussed.

  1. The assessment named in full: product, location, delivery mode and unit. For ARA gasoil that is a CIF NWE diesel cargo assessment in dollars per tonne; for US Gulf jet, a USGC jet pipeline assessment in cents per gallon. For fuel oil the assessment is named in full in the contract, with its own location, delivery mode and unit.
  2. The publication the assessment is read from, and the edition.
  3. The pricing window and the event it is anchored to, usually the bill of lading date or completion of discharge, with the time zone.
  4. The quotation-day rule for weekends, publisher holidays and days without a quotation, written into the contract rather than assumed.
  5. The differential in the assessment’s own unit, fixed for the contract or set per delivery.
  6. The conversion basis and the density where the assessment unit differs from the invoice unit, for example cents per gallon to dollars per tonne on US Gulf jet, or barrels to tonnes on US Gulf fuel oil.
  7. The currency and the rounding.
  8. A delivery basis under Incoterms 2020 at the named terminal that matches the assessment, or a differential that states the difference and says so.

02

Named bases

The assessment for the product and hub is named in the commercial response, and in full in the contract:

  • ARA gasoil against Platts CIF NWE diesel, in dollars per tonne.
  • US Gulf jet against Argus USGC jet, in cents per gallon.
  • ARA fuel oil against a named barge assessment for the grade offered, stated in full in the contract, in dollars per tonne.
  • US Gulf fuel oil against a named high-sulphur assessment, stated in full with the conversion.

All are licensed data and are never displayed on this site. The contract names the exact assessment code and the publication. The family name does not appear in it. An offer priced against another named assessment is reviewed when it states that assessment with the same eight elements.

03

Barrels to tonnes

US Gulf fuel oil is assessed per barrel and invoiced per tonne, so the contract carries the conversion, not an assumption. It states the density at 15 °C from the certificate of quality for the batch, the conversion factor derived from it, and whether the quantity is in air or in vacuum. A conversion at a standard density, or at a density from an earlier batch, changes the invoice: the density in the conversion is the density on the certificate the cargo loads against.

04

Not accepted

  • A benchmark family with a discount. “Platts minus X” names a publisher and skips the other seven elements; it is not a price and cannot be invoiced.
  • A target price in place of a basis. The desk quotes against a defined basis, not against targets.
  • A window without an anchor event or a time zone.
  • A price in one unit and an assessment in another, with no conversion basis.
  • Any formulation the buyer’s bank cannot calculate when the documents are presented for payment.

05

In the enquiry

  • The assessment in full, the publication and the edition.
  • The pricing window, its anchor event, the time zone and the quotation-day rule.
  • The differential, the unit, the conversion basis and density, the currency and the rounding.
  • The delivery basis under Incoterms 2020 and the named terminal the assessment is applied at.