Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: Last week Dry-Bulk freight markets were down $0.25-$0.50/MT. This week they took back that loss. If you look at the Baltic Indices you will see that the paper traders thought things were up about 20 percent this week; but, again, the physical markets did not see it quite that way. Being in this light volume, between-holidays holidays mode, the markets will surely bounce around without any true direction until everyone decides to get back in the game.
Grain container markets will struggle with the issues in the DDGS markets in China and Vietnam. This will push more DDGS to be used domestically in the States and contiguous countries and diminish the need for export containers in the grain trade.
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to China:
The charts below represent January-December 2016 annual totals versus January-December 2015 annual totals for container shipments to China.
