Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: There has not been much new action or movement in global ocean freight markets. Chartering activity was again rather thin with rates mostly unchanged for the week.
I have been attending a very interesting USSEC Asia Transportation conference in Singapore. After listening to various speakers and chatting with freight brokers here, I don’t find anyone who is particularly bullish about freight in the near future. The general consensus seems to be that it will still take another year or two to work through the vessel surplus and return to a better balance.
It is believed that Chinese demand for sorghum will continue strong for the foreseeable future and that
U.S. DDGS sales to China will remain robust. Rumor is that there are 17 DDGS vessels schedule to load out of the Mississippi River during the Jan.-Sept. period.
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 the China.
