Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: China is on National Golden Week Holiday this week, and that makes things fairly quiet in dry-bulk freight markets. Bulk freight markets did gather support from paper traders early in the week but were unable to hold on to the gains at week’s end. We have, however, seen a widening of the spread between Panamax size vessels and the rates for Handy-Handymax ships. The Capesize sector saw the biggest gains for the week. Most vessel markets are currently in an inverse situation looking out into 2019.
Soybean business from the U.S. Gulf to Argentina continues with ship owners holding out for slightly higher rates. We seem to have moved from $33/MT up to $36-$37/MT for Handysize vessels on this route.
The charts below represent 2018 YTD totals versus 2017 annual totals for container shipments to Taiwan.
