Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: The world is back at work, (at least temporarily, as next week is the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.). However, dry-bulk ocean freight markets did not get a boost out of the Asian region returning to work. Markets remain soft and in urgent need of support. There was an effort to push things higher mid-week, but the wheels fell off the wagon by week’s end. The Capsize market has suffered most, losing close to $4.00/ton (about 42 percent) in just one month on the Western Australia to China iron ore trade route. Ship idling is even being discussed.
This obviously has weighed heavy on the Panamax and other markets. Grain cargo demand out of South America has slowed and even U.S. vessel lineups at grain ports has slacked off. Freight market talk now revolves around the question of “have things have hit bottom yet or is there is more pain to be dealt out?” Dry-bulk shipping company stocks have collapsed over the past couple of weeks.
The charts below represent 2018 YTD totals versus 2017 annual totals for container shipments to Malaysia.
