WORLDSCALE and THE ZEN of TANKER FORECASTING

Part One of a Two Part Series

by Geoff. Uttmark

Sometime after Richter devised a scale to measure earthquakes and before 1-10 became “Male Scale”, the quickest, albeit most primitive, measure of the opposite gender, there was Worldscale. Worldscale, abbreviated WS and sometimes simply as a percentage preceded by W, may rank with the US Electoral College in terms of vague, abstract and esoteric. Even those who live and breathe WS every day, namely shippers of petroleum cargoes, brokers and tanker owners, can be hard-pressed to easily explain the when, where, why or even precisely the how of it. Why, for instance does the petroleum side of maritime quote freight rates against an index while the drybulk side steams along quite acceptably simply quoting freight on a dollar per ton (tonne), or alternatively, charter hire in terms of dollars per deadweight ton (tonne) per month, basis? And given that bankers and other providers of services to shipping understand definitions like TCE (time charter equivalent rate), and refineries that receive oil from tankers count their cost in dollars per barrel, and consumers, if they contemplate seaborne oil transport at all, are likely to measure it in terms of cents per gallon, what is the reason for injecting, or more accurately, overlaying, another measure. The answer to this and other confusions lies in what Worldscale’s precursor was intended to do.

This is only an excerpt of WORLDSCALE and THE ZEN of TANKER FORECASTING

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