AFRA scale

AFRA, the Average Freight Rate Assessment, is a tanker freight benchmark that expresses the prevailing market freight as a weighted average of independently owned tanker tonnage, quoted in Worldscale points. The London Tanker Brokers’ Panel has published it continuously since 1954, covering five deadweight groups, using cargo data from the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next and releasing each result on the first of the following month. AFRA is the only tanker assessment recognized by tax authorities as an acceptable method of charging freight between affiliated companies of a multinational group, and oil traders use it to value the freight element in oil sale agreements.