Oil Tanker Pricing Feud Embroils Centuries-Old London Market

A crude oil tanker is guided to a berth at the oil terminal at the port in Qingdao, China.Source: AFP/Getty Images

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By Jack Farchy, Archie Hunter, and Sherry Su

May 2, 2026 at 11:32 AM UTC

Updated on

May 3, 2026 at 6:04 AM UTC

A legal claim from one of the world’s largest oil traders is throwing a spotlight on an arcane but critical corner of global finance — the multibillion-dollar freight market and the 282-year-old City of London institution that sits at the heart of it.

Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. is suing the Baltic Exchange, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, alleging that it has suffered losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of distortions in a key benchmark for the cost of shipping oil from the Middle East to China.