On March 31, 2026 we released a major upgrade to Kpler’s tanker coverage unlocking visibility into the previously untracked sub-5kt vessel fleet.
What has been released?
The release adds ~1,800 active vessels to the Kpler fleet, covering a segment of the market that plays a critical role in intra-regional and intra-country product trades across Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific. This release does not include river barges.
Historical data for these vessels is available back to 2017. This also means that historical volumes have been adjusted accordingly.
Why this matters
Sub-5kt vessels operate in trades that are largely invisible to the broader market. These are short-haul, intra-country and intra-regional movements - the last mile of refined product distribution - and they collectively move significant volumes:
Europe
Clean 1,000–3,000 DWT: 0.8M tons — Northern Europe & intra-Greece
Clean 3,000–5,000 DWT: 8M tons — intra-Europe, intra-country
Dirty 1,000–3,000 DWT: 0.3M tons — Northern Europe & intra-Greece
Dirty 3,000–5,000 DWT: 3M tons — Northern Europe
Asia Pacific
Clean 1,000–3,000 DWT: 9M tons — intra-Japan, South Korea, China
Clean 3,000–5,000 DWT: 30M tons — intra-region, intra-country, Japan, South Korea, China, Indonesia
Dirty 1,000–3,000 DWT: 3.7M tons — intra-Thailand, South Korea, Japan
Dirty 3,000–5,000 DWT: 8M tons — intra-region, Japan, South Korea, South East Asia
Americas
Clean 1,000–3,000 DWT: 1.9M tons — intra-USA, Canada
Clean 3,000–5,000 DWT: 0.7M tons — Caribbean & Latam
Dirty 1,000–3,000 DWT: 0.7M tons — intra-USA
Dirty 3,000–5,000 DWT: 0.1M tons — intra-country Latam
Until now, these flows have been a blind spot. This release gives clients full visibility into trades that directly affect local supply/demand balances, refinery distribution patterns, and regional pricing dynamics.
How to access
This data is available through all standard Kpler delivery methods:
Kpler Platform — flows, vessel tracker, trade table, dashboards
API
Snowflake
Excel add-in