TRUST TRANSPARENCY ACTION

Braemar ACM Shipbroking and Womar Tanker Pools have jointly launched what they claim to be the industry’s first online earnings index for J19 tankers.

J19 vessels refers to stainless-steel chemical tankers between 19,000 dwt and 22,500 dwt, which are the workhorses of deepsea chemical shipping.

The Braemar Womar Index, published via online platform BraemarScreen, takes into account time charter equivalent earnings on 19 trading routes across the globe.

Spot assessments of TCE earnings on nine main routes are published separately.

“We are trying to add a bit of transparency to a market that is relatively opaque at the moment,” Braemar specialised tankers analyst Ben Cooke told TradeWinds.

The assessments are based on rate information gathered from market sources outside the two firms.

Singapore-based Womar, which has about 20 ships in the J19 class, provides business intelligence on bunker consumption and port costs for TCE calculations.

“Ultimately, what we are trying to do is to provide an independent benchmark for the market that can be used by the industry as a whole,” Cooke said.

“We don’t want it to be a Braemar index. We don’t want it to be a Womar index.”

This index, which will be updated every month, is launched in collaboration with FDX Group and Zuma Labs.

Braemar has separately unveiled a forecasting tool for future J19 earnings up to 2030 based on supply and demand factors.

Cooke said Braemar will constantly monitor the supply-demand fundamentals and update the prediction at least once per month.