Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: The Baltic Index traders have now been able to maintain a two-week market rally; nothing too big, but a rally all the same. The Baltic Indexes represent what is being traded on quarterly time charter rates. Just because someone is willing to pay up for a six-month or one-year time charter on a vessel, this does not mean that that buyer can immediately turn around and start getting much better voyage charter rates for their investment. Physical markets are usually slower to react. Most of this week market improvement was felt in the East Coast-South America routes. Rates in the Pacific seem to be toppy today.
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 2016 annual totals for container shipments to Vietnam.
