The Baltic Exchange will likely push ahead and retire the old 74,000 dwt panamax index following the introduction of the new 82,000 dwt price at the start of this year, according to the latest weekly report from Alphabulk, part of France’s AXS Marine.
A meeting of the panamax working group will take place tomorrow at the Baltic’s London headquarters at which the closure of the 74,000 dwt index is likely to be confirmed, something that has been on the cards since the end of 2015. Twelve months of dual reporting of the two indices – 74,000 and 82,000 dwt – side by side has now been completed.
Bulker sizes have been getting larger and larger this century with the traditional demarcation lines between handy, supra, ultra, panamax and kamsarmax increasingly blurred.
Despite opposition in some quarters, the Baltic Exchange took handysize earnings out of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) last March. The London institution, now owned by the Singapore Exchange, re-weighted the BDI to the following ratios of timecharter assessments: 40% capesize, 30% panamax and 30% supramax.
