Mercuria Reveals Government Deals Kept Hormuz Oil Moving in TD3C Legal Fight
Updated
Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 5
Mercuria Reveals Government Deals Kept Hormuz Oil Moving in TD3C Legal Fight
3 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 5
Summary
Legal filings in London show Mercuria moved oil through the Strait of Hormuz via government-brokered deals during the Iran war, offering a rare view of how traders kept cargoes flowing.
The disclosure cuts against Mercuria’s earlier claim that Hormuz transit was impossible without paying an illegal toll, an argument it used to challenge the Baltic Exchange’s TD3C tanker-rate index.
Mercuria wants the exchange to stop publishing TD3C—or recalculate it using comparable routes—because the benchmark is based on hiring a supertanker from inside the Persian Gulf.
The case matters beyond the lawsuit because TD3C is the world’s main oil-tanker rate, making Hormuz access central to pricing and trade through one of the market’s most sensitive chokepoints.
While suing over an 'unusable' route, how was Mercuria secretly shipping its oil through the Strait of Hormuz?
How did Iran’s de facto toll booth on a vital oil route break a 282-year-old shipping benchmark?
Oil Market in Crisis: The 2026 Strait of Hormuz Closure, Mercuria vs. Baltic Exchange, and the Future of Benchmarks
Overview
In June 2026, a major legal dispute erupted between Mercuria Energy Group and the Baltic Exchange after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to military conflict involving Iran, the US, and Israel. Mercuria claims the Baltic Exchange failed to properly reflect this critical closure in its oil trading benchmarks, creating a corrosive market situation and prompting an expedited trial set for October 2026. This case highlights how sudden geopolitical events can disrupt global oil flows, challenge benchmark reliability, and trigger widespread legal and financial uncertainty across the energy trading industry.