Special report: forward freight agreement controversy swirls around Baltic Exchange

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Fairplay, the weekly shipping magazine founded in 1883, which sadly is set to publish its last edition and shut its doors next month, is going out with a bang. It has published a special report examining how the forward freight agreements (FFAs) market, which uses the Baltic Exchange as its index, will be affected by the IMO’s low sulphur fuel regulation changes. It’s a long, thorough and important article, but the question it encompasses, how the index will calculate the fuel cost, for both heavy fuel oil and low sulphur fuel in its benchmarking, could be crucial to the FFA market. The FFA community and the Baltic Exchange are currently in disagreement and, as the article concludes, “ the story of how IMO 2020 affects freight derivatives may be just beginning”.