Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting:The Panamax freight sector continued to be firm this week on the Baltic Freight Index, but we did not see the physical markets get as excited as the folks playing the Baltic indices. The Capsize iron ore vessel market from Western Australia to China did pop up $1.00-$1.50/MT on higher volumes of business. It will likely take the Panamax sector a bit longer to catch up with the trend.
One would think, however, that the uptick in U.S. soybean exports to China could lead to better (higher) rates from the U.S. Gulf and PNW.
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 year-to-date 2014 container shipments to China.
