Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: “What goes up must come down,” especially in a shipping market that still has an over-balance of vessels verses cargo. As I mentioned last week, the Baltic Index rally of the past month has been mostly technical in nature with too many players getting too optimistic with their wishful thinking. This week’s reality check has brought things back closer to earth.
Average daily earnings for Capsize vessels is now $6,059/day, while daily hire rates for Panamax vessels has declined to $6,276/day and look to be going towards $6,000/day. I hope vessel owners grabbed on to the better rates when they were available. Shipping industry financial statements are still looking ugly.
No record yet of any bigger grain vessels using the new expanded Panama Canal locks.
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to China:
The charts below represent year-to-date 2016 versus January-December 2015 annual totals for container shipments to Vietnam.
