In finance, a futures contract is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The asset transacted is usually a commodity or financial instrument. The predetermined price of the contract is known as the forward price or delivery price. The specified time in the future when delivery and payment occur is known as the delivery date. Because it derives its value from the value of the underlying asset, a futures contract is a derivative.
A container ship is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a grade or mix of crude oil; the term is also used to refer to the spot price, the futures price, or assessed price for that oil. In colloquial usage, WTI usually refers to the WTI Crude Oil futures contract traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). The WTI oil grade is also known as Texas light sweet. Oil produced from any location can be considered WTI if the oil meets the required qualifications. Spot and futures prices of WTI are used as a benchmark in oil pricing. This grade is described as light crude oil because of its low density and sweet because of its low sulfur content.
A boat or ship engaged in the tramp trade is one which does not have a fixed schedule, itinerary nor published ports of call, and trades on the spot market as opposed to freight liners. A steamship engaged in the tramp trade is sometimes called a tramp steamer; similar terms, such as tramp freighter and tramper, are also used. Chartering is done chiefly on London, New York, and Singapore shipbroking exchanges. The Baltic Exchange serves as a type of stock market index for the trade.
The Baltic Exchange is a membership organisation for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts.
A bulk carrier or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo—such as grain, coal, ore, steel coils, and cement—in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have led to increased size and sophistication of these ships. Today's bulk carriers are specially designed to maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and durability.
Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities.
Shipbroking is a financial service, which forms part of the global shipping industry. Shipbrokers are specialist intermediaries/negotiators between shipowners and charterers who use ships to transport cargo, or between buyers and sellers of vessels.
Capesize ships are the largest dry cargo ships with ball mark dimension: about 170,000 DWT capacity, 290 m long, 45 m beam (wide), 18m draught. They are too large to transit the Suez Canal or Panama Canal, and so have to pass either Cape Agulhas or Cape Horn to traverse between oceans.
"Suezmax" is a naval architecture term for the largest ship measurements capable of transiting the Suez Canal in a laden condition, and is almost exclusively used in reference to tankers. The limiting factors are beam, draft, height, and length.
The International Maritime Exchange or Imarex is an Oslo-based exchange for trading forward freight agreements (FFAs). It started trading tanker freight futures contracts in 2001, followed by dry cargo freight futures contracts in 2002. All futures contracts are cleared by the Norwegian Futures and Options Clearing House (NOS). Imarex is owned by Imarex ASA and has subsidiaries in Oslo, Singapore, Genova and Houston (USA).
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a shipping freight-cost index issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. The BDI is a composite of the Capesize, Panamax and Supramax timecharter averages. It is reported around the world as a proxy for dry bulk shipping stocks as well as a general shipping market bellwether.
Handymax and Supramax are naval architecture terms for the larger bulk carriers in the Handysize class. Handysize class consists of Supramax, Handymax, and Handy. The ships are used for less voluminous cargoes, and different cargoes can be carried in different holds. Larger capacities for dry bulk include Panamax, Capesize and Very Large Ore Carriers and Chinamax.
Dampskibsselskabet Norden A/S is a Danish shipping company operating in the dry cargo and tanker segment worldwide.
Portline Transportes Marítimos Internacionais, SA., often simply called Portline is a Portuguese shipping company. The company has diverse business activities, including dry bulk, containerised, and break-bulk cargo shipping, shipping agency, forwarding and logistics services, ship management and manning, ship brokerage and chartering, and a container depot service.
LCH is a British clearing house group that serves major international exchanges, as well as a range of OTC markets. The LCH Group consists of two subsidiaries: LCH Ltd based in London and LCH SA based in Paris.
The international shipping industry can be divided into four closely related shipping markets, each trading in a different commodity: the freight market, the sale and purchase market, the newbuilding market and the demolition market. These four markets are linked by cash flow and push the market traders in the direction they want.
Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd. is a shipping company specializing in the transport of dry bulk cargo such as iron ore, coal and grains, as well as bauxite, fertilizers and steel products. As of May 2009, it is the largest bulk carrier by DWT of any U.S.-listed company. Approximately one-third of all seaborne trade is dry bulk related. Excel Maritime was a component of the NYSE Composite Index and the PHLX Marine Shipping Index. The stock has been de-listed from the exchanges as per their rules of listing
Chinamax is a standard of ship measurements that allow conforming ships to use various harbours when fully laden, the maximum size of such a ship being 24 m (79 ft) draft, 65 m (213 ft) beam and 360 m (1,180 ft) length overall. An example of ships of this size is the Valemax bulk carriers.
