Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: World ocean freight markets were not expected to change much this week and they didn’t. It was yet another quiet week with unchanged values. I guess that is good news for freight buyers and not so good for vessel owners. This seems to be a trend that is going to be difficult to break in the near future.
The shift in soybean business from North America to South America is underway with reports of Chinese cancellations of U.S. soybeans and a growing line up of ships waiting to load in Brazil. However, this has not had a significant impact on overall rates from either hemisphere.
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to South China:
The charts below represent January-December 2014 annual totals versus year-to-date 2015 container shipments to Indonesia.
