Aframax
The 80,000 to 120,000 dwt crude tanker class, its origin in the AFRA rate scale, the AFRA115 index reference ship, and the short-haul trades it serves.
An Aframax is a crude oil tanker of roughly 80,000 to 120,000 tonnes deadweight. The name comes from the Average Freight Rate Assessment scale, in which the class sat in the largest band of a size ladder built for freight assessment rather than for naval architecture, which is why a commercial rate scale ended up naming a ship type.
The class serves shorter-haul crude trades where a VLCC parcel is too large or the terminal cannot take one: the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the intra-Asian trades. The full article will cover the size band, the LR2 product tanker equivalent on the same hull, the principal routes including TD7, TD8, TD19 and TD25, and the AFRA115 reference ship used in the published index calculations.