Backhaul and triangulation
Turning a ballast leg into a paying leg: how triangulation and backhaul cargoes lift the realised Time Charter Equivalent above a published round-voyage index.
Triangulation is the practice of finding a paying cargo for part of what would otherwise be a ballast leg, so that a ship completes a three-leg pattern rather than an out-and-back round voyage. A backhaul is the return cargo itself, usually paying less per tonne than the fronthaul because the tonnage flowing back on that lane is smaller than the tonnage flowing out.
The commercial effect is on the denominator as much as the numerator: fewer unpaid days and additional revenue both push the combined Time Charter Equivalent above the round-voyage figure. This is the ordinary reason a well-run operator’s realised earnings exceed the published index for the same period, and the index is not wrong when that happens, because it is measuring a round voyage the operator did not perform.
The full article will cover the trade imbalances that create backhaul opportunities on the major dry bulk and tanker lanes, the cargo compatibility and tank or hold cleaning constraints that limit them, the positioning risk when a backhaul fails to materialise, and how a triangulated estimate is built and compared. See voyage estimation and time charter equivalent .