When Size Stops Setting the Price
A Panamax and a Supramax fixed the same route this week, Continent to East Mediterranean with scrap, and came away with the same number: $37,000/day each. That's according to Advanced Shipping & Trading's Weekly Report for Week 41, published 09.10.2026, which listed both deals on separate lines of the same report.
It's worth pausing on that, because it's not the low end of either ship's week. The Panamax also fixed at $36,075/day on a transatlantic grain run and $33,500/day heading to the Far East. The Supramax picked up $36,500/day, also transatlantic grain. So this wasn't a soft Panamax number dragged down to Supramax levels. Both ships found their best rate of the week on the same route, and that rate happened to land in the same place.
Panamax typically earns a premium over Supramax for the simple reason that it carries more. When that gap closes on a specific route, it usually says more about the route than about the ships. Continent to East Med scrap runs through Gibraltar, around 3,200 nautical miles, and scrap demand on the Mediterranean side combined with open positions on the Continent appears to have pulled rates up for both sizes at once, flattening the usual spread.
Zoom out and the picture gets more interesting. The BDI closed at 2,852 on 12.10.2026, down 65 points (2.23%) and its lowest level since 20 August, driven mainly by Capesize, which dropped 4.4% to 4,148, its weakest reading since late July. Panamax and Supramax indices, meanwhile, both ticked up over the same period (BPI +0.3%, BSI +0.4%). A two-week, 19% slide in Capesize against steady smaller-segment indices points to weakness concentrated in long-haul and ballast positioning rather than a broad drop in dry bulk demand (figures: TradingEconomics and Hellenic Shipping News, 12.10.2026).
If you're pricing a Continent-East Med scrap fixture this week, the usual assumption that a bigger ship automatically earns a lower rate per day isn't holding on this particular route. Worth checking current numbers before quoting either side of that gap.