CommodityScope Reference Series Publication Methodology

1. Scope

This document records Reference methodology version 1.0 as applied to published reference series. It does not retrospectively assign a new effective date to earlier publications. Parent document: CommodityScope Assessment & Publication Framework (/methodology/core).

Family membership and publication class are separate. This document defines Reference Market Series and Reference Market Index as publication classes: externally administered or public market references displayed separately from CommodityScope-created assessments.

Published under this family

Nearby grain futures and named external freight indices currently publish under this methodology. Their published midpoint is the validated published level of the series-level market observation for that date.

Reference class, other market pages

Henry Hub and TTF gas series and selected inventory series may carry the Reference Market Series publication class even where they appear on fertilizer or oil market pages. This document states the public meaning of that class. It does not reassess those series.

Outside this methodology

CommodityScope Indicative Assessments, CommodityScope Modelled Indicators, CommodityScope Freight Indices, Voyage TCE (/methodology/tce), physical grain assessments (/methodology/grain) and dry freight remain in their own families or model methodologies.

2. What Reference 1.0 Is

A Reference Market Series is an externally administered or public market reference displayed separately from CommodityScope-created assessments.

These series remain the publications of their external administrator or public source. CommodityScope displays them as reference information. Display through CommodityScope does not convert a reference series into a CommodityScope Indicative Assessment, a Modelled Indicator or a CommodityScope Freight Index.

CommodityScope does not represent a Reference Market Series or Reference Market Index as the official assessment or methodology of another publisher, exchange, benchmark administrator or data provider. CommodityScope does not treat a listed venue as the administrator of the CommodityScope series identifier used to display that reference.

3. Publication Classes

The series specification, or the published page heading, states which of those two labels applies. A named public index is not relabelled as a CommodityScope Freight Index. A nearby futures quotation is not relabelled as a physical assessment.

4. Published Level

The published midpoint is the validated published level of the series-level market observation for that date.

The published unit is the unit of the series. CommodityScope calculates historical statistics and comparisons from the observations maintained for that series where permitted. Those computed statistics describe the published dataset. They are not a second market quotation.

5. Assessment Range

Reference Market Series and Reference Market Indices do not present a public CommodityScope Assessment Range.

Oil, Grain, Fertilizer and tanker Assessment Ranges remain the range products of those families. They are not applied to reference series.

6. Nearby Grain Futures

Nearby grain futures on this site are third-party nearby quotations in USD/mt as provided by the source. They are Reference Market Series under this family. They are not Grain 1.1 inputs and they are not CommodityScope Indicative Assessments.

The date is the exchange session. Weekend and holiday snapshots repeat the last session. They are not a Saturday or Sunday print, not a contractual settlement price, and not a forward curve.

CommodityScope does not administer the listed futures product and does not treat the listed venue as the administrator of this series. Compare only the same product across venues after checking that the session dates match.

7. Named Reference Indices

Named public freight and container indices displayed on this site are Reference Market Indices. The index is not created or administered by CommodityScope.

A CommodityScope Freight Index remains a separately defined CommodityScope product calculated from published CommodityScope tanker freight assessments. That product is not this methodology.

Externally administered tanker TCE index series are not published as CommodityScope Voyage TCE and are not published as a Reference Market Series or Reference Market Index under this document.

8. Official Tariff Series

Official grain export tariff series are displayed as Reference Market Series. They remain official tariff observations. They are not converted into CommodityScope Indicative Assessments and they are not Grain 1.1 inputs.

A tariff series is not a physical FOB assessment, a futures quotation or a modelled delivered cost.

9. Stocks and Gas Feedstocks

Inventory series that appear on oil market pages remain distinct from a physical price assessment. Their public class is Reference Market Series, as stated in Oil Products & Physical Crude Methodology (/methodology/oil-products).

Henry Hub and TTF gas series that appear on fertilizer market pages are Reference Market Series. Their public class does not convert those series into physical fertilizer assessments. See Fertilizer Assessment Methodology (/methodology/fertilizers).

10. Dates and Cadence

Each series publishes according to its stated frequency. Daily cadence does not imply that a new observation must exist on every business or calendar day. Missing dates may remain absent unless the applicable series rule explicitly provides for carry-forward.

Nearby grain futures use the exchange session as the date and repeat the last session on weekend and holiday snapshots, as stated in Section 6. That session rule is not applied to other reference series unless those series state the same rule.

The assessment date, session date or observation date of a snapshot is the market date reflected by that snapshot. It is distinct from the time at which the value becomes available in CommodityScope systems.

11. Publication and Historical Integrity

Published records retain their original date and methodology version. Later changes to source files or methodology do not rewrite prior published values.

A correction supersedes the previously published value through the applicable correction mechanism while preserving audit history. A correction is not subsequent market movement. An explicitly identified reconstructed or backfilled history is labelled as such. It is not evidence that the series was published contemporaneously on those historical dates.

12. Related Products

Reference publication is not an assessment of the underlying physical, freight or paper market under another family methodology.

Nearby grain futures may be reviewed as market context for physical grain. They do not enter the Grain 1.1 midpoint or Assessment Range. Official tariff series likewise do not enter Grain 1.1.

Named public indices are not constituents of CommodityScope Freight Indices. Voyage TCE does not read these series. Crude Delivered Cost does not read these series.

13. Publication Boundary

Retention of the validated published level, the absence of a public CommodityScope Assessment Range, nearby-futures session dating and the reference publication labels are publication rules of this methodology. They are not applied to oil products, grain, fertilizers, tanker freight, voyage TCE, Crude Delivered Cost or dry freight.

14. Important Notice

Values published under this methodology are Reference Market Series or Reference Market Indices. They are displayed for market-intelligence purposes, not as CommodityScope-created assessments, bids, offers, fixtures, executable quotations or contractual settlement values, and they are not represented as a regulated CommodityScope benchmark.

Use is subject to the CommodityScope Assessment & Publication Framework and the CommodityScope Terms of Service.