$100 Million Tanker Dispute Raises Stakes in Mercuria’s Baltic Exchange Lawsuit

By Archie Hunter and Alex Longley

(Bloomberg) — As lawyers for Mercuria Energy Group presented the commodity giant’s case against the Baltic Exchange this week, a group of smartly dressed Norwegian businessmen listened intently to the arguments from the back of a packed London courtroom.

The executives, representing Oslo-listed Hunter Group ASA, have around $100 million riding on the outcome. The company is in a dispute with Mercuria over a charter deal linked to the TD3C index — the global benchmark oil tanker rate that the trading house claims the Baltic Exchange should have suspended because of disruptions caused by the Iran war. 

Mercuria has been making reduced payments, leaving it in breach of contract and with arrears building, according to Hunter. 

“As of now, it’s more than $100 million total accrued charter income, losses and interest,” Hunter Chairman Morten Astrup told Bloomberg News in a London interview.

A spokesperson for Mercuria declined to comment.

Hunter’s unpaid bill highlights the billions of dollars in criss-crossing contracts that could be affected by a ruling in the London court. The case centers on whether it was still valid for the Baltic Exchange to continue publishing rates to ship oil from inside the Persian Gulf to China in the months after the Iran war broke out.

The disputed TD3C rate relies on broker assessments of the cost of sending a supertanker to China from Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura. However, it also underpins other contracts between tanker owners and their customers as well as billions of dollars in derivatives. 

Mercuria says the Baltic Exchange should have suspended the benchmark rate from early March to July 3, when oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz came to a near standstill as Tehran targeted shipping in the waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world.

The Baltic Exchange, which plays a central role in setting global shipping rates, maintains that it was still possible to put a price on the freight risk using broker assessments, even after oil shipments through Hormuz were severely disrupted in the months following the start of the war.

Since then, the prices for leasing crude-carrying supertankers climbed to record highs of well over $1 million a day as firms shuttled cargoes under fire from rockets and drones out of Hormuz. 

Surging rates saw Oslo-based Hunter’s second-quarter profit jump 13-fold to $47 million from a year earlier. The company, which previously owned and operated supertankers, now focuses on chartering vessels. Its shares have surged 882% this year to give Hunter a market value of about $255 million.

Hunter benefited from its deal with Mercuria because it leased a vessel from the trading house at a fixed rate and then leased it back to Mercuria at a floating benchmark that has soared. 

Hunter hasn’t named Mercuria in its exchange filings, but said on Oct. 9 that an unnamed contractual counterpart owed it an outstanding $67.8 million as of the end of September. That should have increased as charter rates continued to rise in October. 

The vessel in question is a 10-year-old tanker named DHT Puma, which Mercuria took on a time charter from DHT Holdings Inc. until the first quarter of 2027.

Mercuria then leased the DHT Puma to Hunter at a fixed level of $52,000 a day, according to evidence heard in court this week. It leased the vessel back from Hunter at a floating rate linked to the disputed TD3C index that’s jumped since the start of the war.

In its second-quarter results, Hunter said its average time charter margin — the difference between the fixed rate and the spot rate during the period — was $401,172 a day. 

Ships are often traded multiple times between owners and chartering companies. Sometimes a vessel owner will hire out a ship at a fixed rate on a long-term deal to guarantee revenues over a prolonged period, while companies moving significant quantities of oil then have guaranteed access to a tanker. Traders can ultimately continue to hire out ships to other companies if they deem it lucrative to do so.

Hunter Chairman Astrup said Mercuria has subsequently hired out the DHT Puma to shipping tycoon Ga-Hyun Chung’s Sinokor Group, which has been influential in driving the key TD3C benchmark.

Mercuria is urging the London court to declare that the Baltic Exchange breached its obligations, though the trading house has repeatedly changed the outcome it’s seeking since first filing the lawsuit.

This week, after the case had begun, Mercuria said that rather than seeking a retrospective suspension or restatement of the index, it now only wants a judge to declare that the Baltic Exchange shouldn’t have continued publishing TD3C from March to July.

Prior to that, the company had asked for the values published for TD3C since March to be declared as having no effect, and that the index should be retrospectively suspended. Mercuria, which accused the Baltic Exchange of pressurizing brokers to provide rate assessments, has also removed from its pleadings references to losses it says it has suffered. It has never sought compensation from the Baltic in the case.

It’s not clear what the changes to Mercuria’s claims mean for the arbitration Hunter launched to recover the money it says it’s owed by the commodity trader. 

© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

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