Baltic dirty and clean tanker indices
BDTI and BCTI route baskets, their weightings, and the derived TCE baskets.
The Baltic Dirty Tanker Index (BDTI) and Baltic Clean Tanker Index (BCTI) are the Baltic Exchange’s published benchmarks for crude and product tanker freight. The BDTI is built from eleven dirty routes at equal weight, TD18 having been replaced by TD32 in June 2026; the BCTI is a simple average of five clean routes at 20 percent each, TC16 having been removed in April 2026, which also changed the multiplier from 4.540991088 to 4.32344602027436.
Both are published on a Worldscale basis and on a time charter equivalent basis, which is what allows a WS number in a recap to be compared with a daily hire figure. The Baltic also publishes derived TCE baskets for VLCC, Suezmax, Aframax and the MR Atlantic and Pacific trades.
The composition of both baskets, the standard tanker descriptions and the published TCE method are summarised at the Baltic Dry Index and freight indices . The full article will set out each route with its description and weighting, the standard vessel descriptions, the Worldscale to TCE conversion, the derived baskets, and how the indices are used in freight derivatives and in charter party rate escalation.