Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: Other than the wild ride in crude oil tanker freight (for storage), there is little fresh news in freight markets this week. Depending on vessel size, crude oil tankers are now getting $90,000-150,000/day on time charter. Dry-bulk capesize vessels are struggling to get hire rates of $9,000-10,000/day and the Panamax fleet is trading at $6,000-7,000/day. This has created wide gap in the financial health of different types of vessel owners.
Low container rates continue to hurt box ship owners, but there is starting to be a shift of empty containers repositioning back to China in the hope that international demand for Chinese goods will increase. Clarkson’s research, however, estimates that global seaborn trade could drop by 5 percent in 2020.
