Starting up…
ALCA
Built to navigate uncertainty.
· Cape Tankers · CPTA
Why DALCA
Named after the dalca, the vessel that carried the seafaring peoples of Chilean Patagonia through some of the world’s most demanding channels, DALCA is built on the same idea: navigate uncertainty with knowledge, adaptability, and a clear sense of direction. Where others see noise, DALCA reads the currents—bringing together market data, signals, and intelligence to help find the course ahead.
11 routes · 23 products · 6 hubs
Route strength
Live composite of all active factors per route. Click a gauge
for the full breakdown, factor rationale, and route map.
Route view
Brochure layout per route: net arb, supply, physical flow,
freight and relative value. Click any gauge on the Overview
to jump straight here.
Diff basis
Compares the two most recent pipeline runs. Zone changes
and factor entries/exits also feed the alert bell.
How this tab works
Pick a family, then the product. Every product renders the
same six questions: price & structure, the arb that moves the
cargo, physical basis, refining margin, freight, and
inventory. Laycan and window preset themselves to what that
product trades on — cash diffs only print Spot, curves run
M+1 out — and stay editable per product.
Tiles
Each tile keeps its own series picker, so anything can be
swapped by hand without leaving the product.
How this tab works
Pick a family, then the product. Every product renders the
same six questions: price & structure, the arb that moves the
cargo, physical basis, refining margin, freight, and
inventory. Laycan and window preset themselves to what that
product trades on — cash diffs only print Spot, curves run
M+1 out — and stay editable per product.
Tiles
Each tile keeps its own series picker, so anything can be
swapped by hand without leaving the product.
Vessel class
All
MR
Aframax
Suezmax
VLCC
Date window
30d
60d
90d
6m
1y
2y
5y
Max
Custom days
Slider overrides the pills when moved; pick a pill to snap back.
Sentiment tenor
Spot
Balmo
M+1
M+2
Overlay
TCE + FFA fwd
TCE only
Mode
Signals vs TCE
Cross-correlation
Category
All
Refinery Margins
Crude
CPP
Fuel Oil
Vessel class (cross-corr)
All
MR2
Aframax
Suezmax
VLCC
Window
60d
6m
1y
18m
3y
Full
Custom days
Pills snap the slider; drag the slider for a custom window.
'Full' = all stored history.
Laycan (signals)
Spot
M+1
M+2
Lag (days)
0
5
10
20
Route preset
Filters
Departure window
30d
60d
90d
Max
Laden voyages from the daily CPP+DPP snapshots
(store accumulates from Jun 2026). Mixed-cargo stems match
any of their products. Click any donut slice or card row to
cross-filter the whole tab.
Reset filters
Panama Canal
Gatun Lake levels from the Panama Canal Authority (daily, plus
ACP's own forward projection), transits from PortWatch. The lake
level leads; transit counts follow.
History window
1y
2y
5y
Max
Projection
Show
Hide
ACP publishes a forward level projection; it is drawn dashed and
is an estimate, not an assessment.
Groups
Window
30d
60d
90d
180d
1y
Chart
Rebased
Price
Candles
Volume
Rebased sets every line to 100 at the window start — prices
here run from about $6 to $400, so on a shared price axis the
cheap names flatten against the bottom. Candles and Volume show
one name at a time, with its 20-day moving average.
Search
Column filters
Vessel
Segment
Year (commence)
Status
Load area
Load port
Discharge area
Discharge port
Counterparty
Chartering
CP form
Port called (any leg)
Cargo contains
Filters combine (AND). CP form and port match any leg of the voyage.
Reset filters
Business units
Realized monthly TCE per unit from the commercial history
(PI back to 2005) with a 12-month forward view. Voyage records
enrich fleet-days. CPTA = MR2 fleet
· Aframax International · Panamax International.
History window
24m
36m
5y
Max
View
Monthly
Seasonal
Seasonal redraws the unit's realised TCE as a Jan–Dec
calendar against its own five-year range, with the forecast
carried on as the outlook line — the same treatment as the
route view's freight seasonal. The window pills do not apply to
it: a seasonal band needs every year of history, not the last
24 months.
Fleet split
Coated (clean-capable) tanker deployment: monthly LR2 /
LR1 count trading clean vs dirty, the % trading dirty, and a running
ledger of net vessels dirtying up. Coated tonnage swinging between
pools moves effective supply for our Aframax / Panamax dirty routes.
History window
3y
5y
10y
Max
Value labels
Off
Sparse
Dense
Chart height
Compact
Standard
Tall
Spot momentum
Daily spot assessments — the physical print brokers
quote, back to 1998 on TD8. Clean routes (TC2/TC14) in Worldscale;
TD28 in $/t. Separate basis from the forward FFA curve.
Route
TC2
TC14
TD8
TD19
TD25
TD28
History window
1y
3y
5y
Max
Value labels
Off
Sparse
Dense
Chart height
Compact
Standard
Tall
Route
Freight format
VLSFO $/MT
Overrides
Defaults load from route assumptions; edit freely -- nothing is saved.
View
Overlay
Scatter
Rolling r
Scatter and Rolling r read series A and B; C and D stay on the
overlay only.
Window
30d
60d
90d
1y
2y
Custom
to
Frequency
Daily
Weekly avg
Monthly avg
Rolling window (r)
20d
30d
60d
Smoothing
Raw
7d MA
30d MA
Chart title
Chart size
Auto
1280×720
1600×900
900×900
1600×600
Delay a series
+N shifts the chosen series forward N days (tests it LEADING
the others by N); −N tests it lagging. Auto scans every delay
(whole months on Monthly avg, weeks on Weekly avg) and applies
the best fit to series A; the readout under the chart names it
either way.
Actions
After editing, re-run the TCE step of the pipeline to recompute with new values.
Gauges
Map
What changed · today vs previous run
Major moves only: routes that swung more than 15 points or changed status, grouped by segment. The morning question, answered without opening fifteen drawers.
Product
Family
Light ends
Middle distillates
Product
Laycan (all tiles)
Window (all tiles)
Product
Family
Crude
Residual fuels
Product
Laycan (all tiles)
Window (all tiles)
Summary · latest
Scatter · signal vs route TCE
Scatter
Rolling r
3m
6m
12m
18m
All pairs · ranked by R²
Volume by vessel class
Departures in the selected trade
split
Destination
Origin
Cargo
Segment
per
Week
Month
style
Bars
Area
Pie
unit
kt
kbbl
kbpd
voyages
share %
Vessels in the trade
Gatun level against the condition bands
The band the line sits in IS the reading: it fixes the max draft, the daily transit slots and the Neopanamax / Panamax split. Falling through a boundary is what forces a draft advisory, and that is what re-prices every cargo weighing a canal transit against the long way round.
Operating table · level to conditions
The operating bands in force. The current level's row is highlighted. Draft is fresh-water feet; slots are the daily bookable transits by lock.
The slot count above is only half the story: WHICH slot, in which booking window, for which class of ship, in which direction. This is that system in plain language, with the current allocation as last recorded.
How to read
Start with 'Where it stands'. Everything below it is the rulebook and rarely moves; the numbers in the cards are what changes, sometimes weekly.
Level vs its own seasonal history
Gatun is strongly seasonal — the dry season runs Jan–Apr — so a raw level says little on its own. This year against the same day-of-year in prior years: below the band is a genuinely dry year, not just a dry month.
Transit health
The lagging confirmation. Transits follow the level down with a delay, because ACP announces slot cuts in advance of the draft biting. Tanker transits are shown separately — they move differently from the container-heavy total.
Performance
Selected names over the window. Divergence inside a group is the signal: when one owner lags a rising peer group it is usually fleet or fixture specific, not the market.
Equities vs our earnings
Tanker equities rebased against a segment basket from our own TCE history. Equities lead earnings more often than they follow, so a gap that opens without a rate move is the market pricing something the board has not seen yet -- or getting ahead of itself.
Daily signals
One end-of-day reading per security from the signal engine: trend 30%, momentum 20%, breakout 10%, volume 10%, relative strength 15%, market overlay 15%. Strong labels are GATED — score alone never earns one; confidence, trend, relative strength, four of six pillars, and for a tanker the freight overlay, must all agree. A regime indicator, not an instruction to trade.
Prediction markets · Polymarket
Implied probabilities, and how they moved since the previous snapshot. The MOVE is the information: one reading of 35% says little, 12% to 35% in a week says a lot. These are betting odds, not our data, and they feed nothing in the engine.
Table builder
Group by
Aggregation
How each column folds up
One row per group. Rates default to day-weighted; P&L / voyage days gives the earned-per-day figure over the whole group.
Export
XLSX
Grouped mode folds the filtered voyages into one row per group, using the SAME columns you picked -- and the Aggregation control decides how each one folds: sum, average, day-weighted, P&L per voyage day, counts. Click a row in voyage mode to open its itinerary below. Any column can be filtered from the sidebar, shown here or not.
Model backtest · rolling-origin MAE ($/day)
Re-evaluated on every pipeline run over the trailing ~24 months. Short-term (1-2m) forecasts use each unit's backtest winner; months 3-12 converge onto the market-anchored path, with the market proxy's forward shape taken from the FFA-implied TCE curve. Bands = ±1.5× backtest MAE, widening with horizon.
LR2 / Aframax-size · clean vs dirty deployment
LR2s are coated Aframaxes. When more swing to CLEAN they leave the dirty Aframax pool — supportive for TD25 / TD19 / TD9. A rise in % dirty = coated tonnage returning to crude/DPP, adding Aframax supply.
LR1 / Panamax-size · clean vs dirty deployment
LR1s are coated Panamaxes. Falling % dirty drains the dirty Panamax pool (supportive TD21); rising % dirty adds dirty Panamax supply.
Cross-route momentum · indexed to 100 at window start
Every route rebased to 100 so Worldscale and $/t sit on one scale. Steepest line = strongest relative move over the window — the read for which segment is leading or lagging.
This year's daily spot vs the prior-years monthly range (band = min–max, line = median). Above the band = a firmer-than-seasonal market; below = softer.
Voyage economics
Market context
Same formula as the board: net freight = gross x 0.9625 (3.75% commissions); TCE = (net - bunkers - port costs) / round-voyage days. Assumptions editable in the Assumptions tab.
Series selection
Series A · left axis
Series B · right axis
Series C · left axis · optional
Series D · right axis · optional
Route assumptions · read-only on this board
These are the assumptions every TCE on this board is built on, shown for reference.
Freight type: WS (worldscale) or LS ($/T direct).
Bunker hubs: comma-separated (e.g. Zhoushan,Singapore).
Vessel consumption · MT/day · read-only on this board
Suezmax and VLCC seeded with industry averages — refine with fleet actuals.
TCE formula reference
net_freight = 0.9625 × gross_freight (1.25% freight + 2.50% address comm.)
gross: WS route = tons × (WS × flat / 100)
LS route = tons × rate_per_ton (forward rates always $/T)
cons_mt = 2×laden × avg(laden,ballast cons) + wait×anchor + load×load_cons + disch×disch_cons
TCE $/day = (net_freight − cons_mt × VLSFO − port_cost) / total_days
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ALCA
Built to navigate uncertainty.
Named after the dalca, the vessel that carried the seafaring peoples of Chilean Patagonia through some of the world’s most demanding channels, DALCA is built on the same idea: navigate uncertainty with knowledge, adaptability, and a clear sense of direction. Where others see noise, DALCA reads the currents—bringing together market data, signals, and intelligence to help find the course ahead.
Snapshot 2026-08-27 · refreshed 07:00 daily