The BAF Black Box: Navigating Surcharges in an Era of Disruption

The surcharge you cannot verify.

Every time you accept a freight rate that includes Bunker Adjustment Factors (BAF), you are accepting a number calculated on the carrier's terms, using the carrier's fuel price source and consumption assumptions. There is no external reference to check it against.

In a market where disruptions are no longer exceptions, the gap between what carriers charge and what voyages actually cost has never been wider or harder to quantify.

This webinar examines whether an independent simulation mechanism, one that combines vessel-specific fuel consumption models, actual execution patterns, and real-time port fuel prices, could give shippers a credible reference point. Not to confront carriers. To negotiate with facts.

Constantine Komodromos, CEO and Founder of VesselBot, and Bart A. De Muynck, Industry Expert and former VP Analyst at Gartner, will work through the mechanics of the problem and what a viable benchmarking solution would need to look like to be trusted and used in practice.

What you will take away

Attending this session gives you a working understanding of four things your team needs now:

• Why BAF is structurally unverifiable. You will understand exactly where the accountability gap sits.
• What execution-grade simulation changes. How digital twin models using actual vessel waypoints, fuel consumption, speed, and port fuel prices differ from the static formulas in your contract.
• What this means for Logistics & Procurement. How an independent reference point changes the conversation during your next RFP, and how it shifts the dynamic from acceptance to evidence-backed dialogue.
• Where your cost exposure actually sits. How BAF volatility flows from the logistics desk to the CFO's P&L, and what visibility into that exposure makes possible.

Who should attend

This session is relevant to C-suite executives who deal with freight cost, procurement, or budget accountability: Chief Supply Chain Officers, Chief Logistics Officers, Chief Procurement Officers, and CFOs at manufacturing and logistics companies managing significant ocean freight spend.

Register to join the conversation about whether an independent benchmark could give shippers a credible reference point for BAF, and what that would mean for freight procurement in practice.