Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: All-in-all it was a pretty quiet week. This means there really is not much to talk about other than the fact that Dry-Bulk rates slipped back a bit more in a market that did not show much conviction in any cause.
Containerized grain freight markets seem to have more news and concerns as traders have experience an increase in rates during the first quarter of 2017 and fear that shipping lines could try to impose additional increases of up to $200/TEU over the next 3-4 months. This makes it difficult to quote CFR sales for this summer. Of course, all this was probably more of a concern up until earlier today when U.S. Department of Justice antitrust regulators raided the Box Club meeting in San Francisco to serve subpoenas to shipping line employees. We will have to see how this twist affects shipping line rate thinking.
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 January-December 2016 annual totals for container shipments to Hong Kong.
