Leading commodities and energy information provider Argus has launched a new freight service which offers global pricing and market intelligence for biofuels, associated feedstocks and chemicals.

The world’s appetite for biofuels is growing fast as energy market participants move to meet net zero obligations and commitments, and to diversify sources of supply. The biofuels complex includes commodities ranging from sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and biodiesel to feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO) and tallow.

These products are shipped in specialised chemical tankers, which operate in a sophisticated and opaque multi-commodity market.

The lack of reliable freight pricing information has made it hard to conduct detailed analysis and make informed trading decisions for market participants across the supply chain — from fuel suppliers and midstream companies to traders and financial institutions.

The Argus Specialised Freight service provides over 180 freight prices for biofuels and their feedstocks, as well as for chemicals such as methanol, glycols and aromatics, with other specialised market prices to follow in the coming months. The service covers full and part-cargo loads for all key vessel types — IMO2, IMO3 and stainless steel tankers.

“The new Argus Specialised Freight service brings much-needed transparency to previously opaque freight costs in biofuels and chemicals industries. It will help a lot of businesses active in this space to manage risk in an increasingly complex and highly regulated market,” Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said.

Argus is the leading worldwide provider of renewable fuel indexes and benchmarks for renewable diesel, SAF and the key feedstock UCO. Its price assessments are used as the settlement basis for futures contracts in these products in the US, Europe and Asia.

Source: Argus