Freight & Shipping Indices

What are freight and shipping indices?

Freight and shipping indices are benchmark measures of the cost to move cargo by sea. They split into two families: dry-bulk indices (the Baltic Dry Index and its Capesize component), which track the cost of shipping raw materials like iron ore, coal and grain; and container indices (the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index and the Drewry World Container Index), which track the cost of shipping boxed manufactured goods. Because a shipping fixture is a committed, real-money transaction, these indices are widely used as leading indicators of global trade demand — they move with physical activity rather than financial speculation.

How often is each freight index published?

Publish cadence varies by index, which matters for anyone polling the API or building alerts:

• BDI — Every London business day (daily), published by Baltic Exchange.
• BCI — Every London business day (daily), published by Baltic Exchange.
• SCFI — Weekly, published every Friday, published by Shanghai Shipping Exchange.
• WCI — Weekly, published every Thursday, published by Drewry.

The dry-bulk indices update every business day; the container indices update once a week. Poll on the index's cadence rather than every minute, and treat weekly indices as fresh for about eight days.

How do I access freight index data via API?

Request any freight index from the OilPriceAPI REST endpoint with the by_code parameter. For example, to get the latest Baltic Dry Index value:

curl "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest?by_code=BALTIC_DRY_INDEX" \
  -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY"

Swap the code for BALTIC_CAPESIZE_INDEX, SCFI_INDEX or DREWRY_WCI_USD. A free API key covers the latest value for every index.

When freight indices are not the right data