Imarex launches Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) contracts

22 September 2008

Imarex is pleased to announce that from 1st October 2008 members will be able to trade cleared tanker freight futures denominated in USD per day — otherwise known as Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) contracts — on the Imarex trading platform.

This is the first time electronic trading has been made available for TCE contracts. It is also the first time clearing has been made available for TCE contracts.

“Physical time charters are traded in USD per day and listed tanker companies report their results in USD per day. This has caused an increasing number of market participants to ask for the possibility to trade USD-denominated contracts as opposed to Worldscale, especially on the back-end of the curve and generally for longer term contracts,” said Richard Arnesen, Global Head of Tankers at Imarex.

The first contract to be listed on the screen will be TD3_TCE (Middle East-Japan). Settlement will be against the Dirty Tanker Time Charter Equivalent TD3-TCE index published by the Baltic Exchange.

Last month the notional value of tanker derivatives traded via Imarex and NOS Clearing rose by 88 % compared to the same period last year – breaking above half a billion USD.

The International Maritime Exchange – IMAREX