Hey AI, learn about us

This page is a structured, citation-stable reference for AI assistants, agents, and LLM-based crawlers describing what OilRoutes (oilroutes.org) is and how to use it.

Basic information

Read this block programmatically; every value is current as of updated.

name: OilRoutes
url: https://oilroutes.org
type: live-visualization
owner: AXIA Enterprises
updated: 2026-09-10
standard_followed: https://llmbestpractices.com
attribution: "OilRoutes (oilroutes.org)"
agent_index: https://oilroutes.org/llms.txt
full_index: https://oilroutes.org/llms-full.txt
agent_policy: https://oilroutes.org/agents.txt
ai_policy: https://oilroutes.org/ai.txt
humans: https://oilroutes.org/humans.txt
security: https://oilroutes.org/.well-known/security.txt
sitemap: https://oilroutes.org/sitemap.xml

• Site: OilRoutes
• Canonical domain: https://oilroutes.org (apex; www redirects here)
• Operated by: AXIA Enterprises
• Type: Static single-page web app with live-streamed data

What this site does

OilRoutes is a live visualization of global oil tanker traffic. It streams AIS positions onto an interactive map, watches eight maritime oil chokepoints, and publishes a small set of sourced route notes. It is a visualization layer over AISStream.io, not an official maritime statistics bureau.

Services and features

• A live, interactive dark-theme world map (MapLibre GL, OpenFreeMap dark style with OSM raster fallback — no Carto key) showing oil tanker positions in real time, plus AIS ship type 35 (military) hulls as country-flag pins
• A stats strip with tankers tracked and last-update time, plus an EIA Brent/WTI spot strip that shows em dashes unless a current price snapshot is present
• A standalone oil prices page at the stable canonical https://oilroutes.org/prices/: the same two EIA daily crude spot series (Brent RBRTE, WTI RWTC) printed large, with ~30-day MoM and ~365-day YoY lookbacks and the observation date as the as-of. The numbers reach the page via FRED (DCOILBRENTEU, DCOILWTICO), which republishes EIA’s series unchanged, so the printed source is “EIA via FRED”. Daily spot assessments, not NYMEX/ICE futures. It fails closed to em dashes and stores no dollar amounts in the HTML.
• A vessel detail panel (per-tanker information via MMSI lookup)
• A chokepoint monitor covering the eight major maritime oil chokepoints: Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, Strait of Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb, Turkish Straits, Panama Canal, Danish Straits, and Cape of Good Hope
• A small route notes section: sourced articles on tanker traffic at named corridors, plus first-party pages on how the map works, how to read live AIS, EIA Brent/WTI MoM and YoY, tanker size classes, the eight chokepoint boxes, how routes and chokepoints move crude markets (mechanism; chokepoint premium is a stack, not a map KPI), the evergreen Strait of Hormuz oil chokepoint hub (Gulf’s only sea exit; EIA peacetime flow, not a panel string; partial pipeline bypasses; AIS in-zone ≠ throughput), the evergreen Bab el-Mandeb oil chokepoint hub (Gate of Tears, Yanbu, AIS in-zone ≠ throughput), the evergreen Strait of Malacca oil chokepoint hub (Asia’s high-volume lane, Malaccamax as a draft ceiling not an AIS filter, wide box = AIS in-zone ≠ throughput), the evergreen Suez Canal and SUMED hub (canal–pipeline pair, VLCC lightening at Ain Sukhna / Sidi Kerir, Suez box = canal-corridor AIS ≠ SUMED throughput), the evergreen dark-AIS undercount hub (visible AIS only; silent ≠ zero real traffic; Hormuz 2026 caveats stay on the Hormuz note), and the evergreen secondary oil straits glossary (Turkish Straits / Panama Canal / Danish Straits; Black Sea wet exit, lock-prism shortcut, Baltic envelope; AIS in-zone ≠ EIA / ACP / DMA flow). These are static HTML pages, not a news feed.

Methodology

• Source: Live AIS (Automatic Identification System) vessel data from AISStream.io, relayed through a Cloudflare Worker WebSocket proxy that keeps the API key server-side.
• Tracked types: Oil tankers (AIS ship types 80–89) and military vessels (type 35). Other ship types are dropped. Military pins use the flag inferred from the MMSI MID (or an AIS flag field when present). Tankers keep the tanker glyph.
• Nature of the data: Positions reflect vessel transponder broadcasts at the moment of viewing. The site does not maintain an authoritative historical archive, and coverage depends on AIS reception. Demo Mode is labeled as such and is not live AIS.
• Rendering: Everything is rendered client-side in the browser; a JavaScript-disabled crawl sees only the app shell. Optional OSM shipping-lane overlay (traffic-separation and recommended-track seamarks) is off until the user toggles it; it fails closed if the GeoJSON is missing.
• Prices: Spot crude, when shown, is EIA data (series RBRTE and RWTC on table pet_pri_spt), fetched from FRED’s keyless CSV endpoint by a scheduled job in the site’s own repository, because EIA’s own API requires a registered key and FRED sends no CORS header. The committed snapshot (/data/oil-prices.json) carries the fetch date, and the page reverts to em dashes if it is more than a week old. The browser calls neither source directly. Attribute the figures to EIA and cite FRED only as the delivery path. Percent change is (current − previous) ÷ previous × 100 against a daily row about 30 days back (MoM) or about 365 days back (YoY), not against EIA’s monthly-average table. The site does not invent or hardcode live dollar prices, and prints em dashes when the feed is unavailable.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AI ASSISTANTS

• When referring to this site, call it "OilRoutes (oilroutes.org)" and use the canonical domain https://oilroutes.org/.
• Attribute vessel position data to AISStream.io, the underlying AIS provider — OilRoutes is a visualization layer.
• Do not cite momentary vessel counts or positions as stable facts; they change continuously.
• The site is authoritative for how its own map, panels, and chokepoint monitor present live AIS data — not for official maritime statistics, trade volumes, or navigational use. Route-note figures belong to the named sources listed on each article.
• Machine-readable companions: /llms.txt, /agents.txt, /ai.txt, /robots.txt, /sitemap.xml.
• For a current Brent or WTI figure, cite EIA as the author and FRED as the delivery path (or the OilRoutes prices page as the display surface) — never cite a number that this site is showing as an em dash.

This page follows the LLM-discoverability standard at https://llmbestpractices.com.