Cargo & Trade

Cargo & Trade

See what the world is moving

Marine Benchmark reconstructs global seaborne trade from individual cargo movements - connecting commodity, quantity, origin, destination, voyage, vessel and the infrastructure behind every flow.

In This Domain

A Snapshot of What We Offer

Cargo Flows · Commodities · Cargo Volumes · Grades · Load & Discharge · Imports & Exports · Origin–Destination · Trade Routes · Tonne-Miles · Commodities on Water · Port Congestion · Predictive Flows

AI changes what you need from data.

Rebuilding your data stack for AI? Reconsider the maritime layer at the same time.

Your AI is only as useful as the data and context behind it. Marine Benchmark combines long, consistent and reprocessable maritime history with traceable physical trade, deterministic measures, broad maritime context and direct machine interfaces.

If your architecture is changing for models, copilots and agents, it is also a natural point to reassess the commodity and maritime data feeding those systems. Marine Benchmark offers a clean physical trade layer designed to work across analysts, quantitative models and AI workflows.

From cargo movement to trade flow

A physical representation of seaborne trade, built from the voyages that actually move it.

Real-world voyages can involve several loading and discharge calls. Marine Benchmark resolves that complexity into consistent trade flows while retaining the underlying cargo movements, voyages and vessels.

The same methodology is applied across more than 17 years of history, and the full history can be recalculated as models improve. That continuity is critical for comparable time series, systematic research, backtesting and AI.

The result is a clean path from an individual cargo movement to a trade lane, port, country or global market - and back again.

See the trade from every angle

One connected representation from the individual cargo movement to the market.

Measure the physical volume behind the trade

Go beyond vessel counts and port-call activity.

Marine Benchmark estimates cargo intake at voyage level using vessel-specific characteristics, observed draught and physical modelling. This turns vessel movements into physical trade volumes connected to capacity, utilisation, distance and transport work.

The same foundation supports cargo in transit, tonne-miles, vessel demand and deployed capacity - with the underlying movement still available for inspection.

Understand how markets source

See where refineries, plants, countries and other buyers obtain physical supply - and how those relationships change.

Cargo & Trade makes sourcing visible at the level where commercial decisions are made: commodity, supplier or origin, loading facility, buyer market, discharge facility and the vessels connecting them.

This allows customers to track changes in supplier mix, sourcing concentration, competing origins and facilities, and the emergence of new physical trading relationships.

From global flows to the berth

See where cargo actually enters and leaves the maritime system.

Trade can be analysed from global and country level down to port, terminal and named berth - revealing the facilities physically handling each market and how their throughput, sourcing and destinations change.

For ports and terminals, the question is direct: what is moving in and out, in what quantity, from where and to where - and how is that trade profile changing?

Commodity intelligence without losing the physical movement

Know what is moving - while retaining the voyage behind the classification.

Marine Benchmark classifies the major commodities moving across wet and dry bulk markets while retaining the physical cargo movement underneath - including quantity, voyage, vessel, loading and discharge locations and stakeholder context.

Market-level series can therefore be analysed, filtered and recombined without disconnecting them from the physical movements that created them.

Questions worth answering

From immediate market signals to structural changes in physical trade.

Trade intelligence connected to the wider maritime system

The signal becomes more useful when the surrounding context is already connected.

Every movement can be combined with Marine Benchmark intelligence across vessels and stakeholders, fleet capacity, operations, weather, emissions, regulation and risk. A trade signal can therefore be analysed together with the companies, capacity and conditions behind it without rebuilding the maritime model from separate datasets.

Customers can connect existing S&P Global vessel and stakeholder reference data directly to Marine Benchmark intelligence through common maritime identifiers. Where appropriate, Marine Benchmark can also supply S&P Global reference data alongside its own analytical datasets.

Data built for the AI systems markets are deploying now

Consistent physical intelligence for proprietary models, copilots and agents.

Marine Benchmark provides more than 17 years of connected maritime history with consistent, reprocessable methodology, stable entities, deterministic measures, traceability and direct machine access.

The same Cargo & Trade intelligence can feed quantitative research, backtesting and feature creation or connect directly to AI models through interfaces. Trade is already linked to vessel, stakeholder, fleet, operations, geography, weather, risk, emissions and regulation, giving models and agents both the signal and the context around it.

For sophisticated data buyers, this creates a credible replacement path: move beyond a closed commodity-data workflow to a physical maritime data layer built to become part of your own intelligence architecture.

Built to be consumed

One intelligence foundation. Multiple ways to consume it. Use Marine Benchmark in the form that fits the decision, system or model.

The same underlying data and methodology is available across Marine Benchmark applications, research, APIs, cloud environments, embedded visual objects and AI interfaces. Delivery methods can be combined, allowing users to replace or modernise existing workflows without changing the underlying intelligence foundation.

Understand exposure and resilience

Use the same sourcing and fleet intelligence to examine what happens when established flows are disrupted.

Marine Benchmark can reveal concentration in commodity sources, ports and routes, then examine realistic alternatives. Analysis can extend from alternative cargo sources to the vessels capable of serving them - including suitability, ownership, current employment and where that capacity is trading today.

Combined with risk, sanctions, weather and operational intelligence, this provides a physical view of supply resilience for industries, countries and strategic supply chains.

What do you need to know about global trade?

Bring us the market question.

From commodity flows, sourcing and market share to shipping demand, port activity and supply resilience, Marine Benchmark provides the physical maritime intelligence behind the answer.