Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: Last week we saw a small selloff in ocean freight rates. This week the market remained thin and continued to back down slightly. The trade is attributing this softness to “profit taking.” We need to remember that there is a fair amount of paper trading that takes place and there are technical traders who just play the market momentum up or down. The physical side of the market was fairly quiet this week. Q4 2017 Panamax time charter rates are hovering around $9,700-$10,200/day but 2018 is going for just $9,200/day. It is therefore difficult to think that we will see any major market moves in 2017 or the first half of 2018.
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to China:
The charts below represent YTD 2017 versus 2016 annual totals for container shipments to mainland China.
