Panamax ships to find stormy weather ahead
The future of panamax-sized dry-bulk carrier ships weighs heavily on shipowners’ minds when considering how to strengthen their fleets. With a capacity ranging from 60,000 to 80,000 deadweight tons (dwt), panamax bulkers have a considerable portion of Greek shipping interests invested in them. Now they are threatened by the appearance of a new type of ships, the so-called super-handy or supermax. This new category is placed between the traditional handymax and the quite larger panamax, as their shipping capacity stands at 52,000 dwt against a handymax’s 45,000 dwt. Analysts and shipowners were mightily surprised when, a few weeks ago, supermax owners secured higher freight rates than the bigger-sized panamax. The same predictably occurred with larger vessels up to 100,000 dwt, the number of which has also begun to rise. All this, according to industry publication TradeWinds, creates huge doubts about the future viability of the panamax category. Early this year, the Baltic Handymax Index (BHI) was replaced by the Baltic Supramax Index (BSI) as the main way of recording smaller dry-bulkers. In the first months of the new index’s operation the average level of the daily chartering rate rose to $18,804, when the same price for panamax-type vessels, as recorded by the Baltic Panamax Index (BPI), did not exceed $17,652 per day. The situation did revert to normal within a few weeks, as panamax ships secured rates of $19,155 on average while supermax vessels could only reach $16,842. Nevertheless, the morale of panamax shipowners has been dealt a huge blow as they see smaller vessels securing greater rates. Supermax ships offer considerably greater flexibility to international traders as well as fewer empty spaces that are anyway paid for by charterers, what is known as dead-freighting. Therefore the supermax category becomes particularly competitive in the routes through Panama, the coal trade from Indonesia and the iron ore trade from India. Supermax ships could obtain a share of the wheat shipping market from the US to Japan. Certain Greek companies have already started to adapt. Theodoros Angelopoulos’s Metrostar recently invested in kamsarmax dry-bulkers that can carry 82,000 dwt.
