Repositioning voyage

A repositioning voyage is a ballast (empty) passage run to move the ship from where it discharged to where the next cargo loads. It earns no freight, so its bunker cost and days are loaded onto the following laden voyage in the round-voyage TCE: the more ballast steaming, the lower the daily earnings. Operators minimize repositioning by chaining cargoes geographically or by taking a low-rate backhaul to avoid an empty leg. A long repositioning leg can turn an apparently strong freight rate into a poor TCE once the ballast days are absorbed.