Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: “Hooray and up she rises!” Market traders are sure showing optimism for a bullish market. Dry-bulk freight markets are definitely up and rising and deserving of some celebration by vessel owners. In the last three weeks, the Baltic Dry-Bulk index is up 376 points or 55 percent. The Baltic Dry-Bulk Panamax index is up 287 points or 31 percent. Physical Dry-Bulk Panamax markets from the U.S. Gulf to Asia are up $3.00/MT or 9 percent. At week’s end things seem to be cooling down a bit, or at least taking a rest.
U.S. Interior rail logistics to west coast ports in the PNW have greatly improved. Most rail track repair has been completed and grain rail service to the ports has pretty much returned to normal. The vessel loading backlog is slowly declining but will still take some weeks to fully recover. We have to hope Mother Nature will not throw something more at us over the next couple of months. We are not totally out of the winter season yet and certainly not beyond the possibility of spring flooding. Best to keep a little extra inventory.
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 Taiwan.
