Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: As the old saying goes, “it’s hard to keep a good man down.” In the case of ocean freight markets, it’s hard to keep a poor market up. Cargo demand simply has not risen to levels necessary to soak up the excess vessel supply and create support in the market. It might be 2015 before this occurs and, in the meantime, we are going to have to see how many vessel owners/operators can tread water and keep their finances together. 2014 is not turning out to be the turnaround year many expected as you will see in the below Panamax forward curve. The market is, however, eternally optimistic about the future. Maybe next week will be a little better?
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to China:
The charts below represent January-December 2013 annual totals versus January 2014 year-to-date container shipments for Malaysia.
