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. It was located at 24–28 St Mary Axe, London, until the building was destroyed by a bomb in 1992, and is now located at 38 St Mary Axe. It has further offices in Europe, across Asia, and in the United States.
Overview
Its international community of 650 member companies encompasses the majority of world shipping interests and commits to a code of business conduct overseen by the Baltic. Baltic Exchange members are responsible for a large proportion of all dry cargo and tanker fixtures as well as the sale and purchase of merchant vessels. The Baltic Exchange traces its roots back to 1744 and the Virginia and Baltick Coffee House in Threadneedle Street. It was incorporated as a private limited company with shares owned by its members on 17 January 1900. In November 2016 the Singapore Exchange acquired the Baltic Exchange. It remains headquartered in London. The exchange provides daily freight market prices and maritime shipping cost indices which are used to guide freight traders as to the current level of various global shipping markets as well as being used to set freight contract rates and settle freight futures. Originally operating a trading floor, the exchange's members' transactions are today mainly conducted by telephone. The exchange is the source of market-wide information and publishes seven daily indices made up from a suite of wet and dry bench-marked time-charter and voyage routes:
In April 2018 the Baltic Exchange announced a global container index in partnership with Freightos. Liquified Natural Gas assessments launched in 2019. The exchange also provides forward curves, a dry cargo fixture list, sale and purchase values, LPG & LNG assessments, daily market news and the market settlement data for freight derivative contracts.
BIFFEX, the Baltic International Freight Futures Exchange, was a London-based exchange for trading ocean freightfutures contracts with settlement based on the Baltic Freight Index. It started trading dry cargo freight futures contracts in 1985, and was modestly successful for some years. All contracts were cleared by the ICCH, later renamed LCH.Clearnet. A tanker freight futures contract was introduced in 1986, but never became popular and was suspended indefinitely the same year. Volumes in the dry cargo contracts dwindled over the years, and the contracts ceased trading due to lack of liquidity in 2001.
