Diana Shipping has locked one of its panamaxes into a period charter, its sixth similar deal this month.

The Greek bulker owner said Hudson has hired the 73,630-dwt Protefs (built 2004) at $7,900 per day, from 12 to 15 months.

This represents a pay rise from the vessel’s previous charter with Transgrain Shipping at $4,500.

Protefs is expected to be delivered to its charterer on 23 June, after it underwent scheduled dry docking earlier this month.

Diana said the latest deal will generate around $2.84m of gross revenue for the minimum period of the charter.

As TradeWinds has reported, Diana fixed out five panamaxes at mostly better rates, securing pay increases of 18% to 52%.

The Baltic Dry Index was down for the fifth consecutive day today and read 847 points.

According to data from Bloomberg, the daily rate for panamaxes was $8,151 on Tuesday.