Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: Are dry-bulk rates up or down? This week the answer is: both. Rates are down week over week but up for the day (as of Thursday’s publication time). It has been a wild ride, but it looks like Capesize and dry-bulk markets have finally found bottom. That, however, is mostly because there is not much further to go with Capesize markets already trading below cost. Now the market will have to see how well rates hold and if they can recover much of the past months’ losses. All hopes hinge on expectations of an uptick in Chinese business.
The ILWU-West Coast Port labor contract negotiations are ongoing with no schedule for a conclusion soon.
The market is still carefully watching the railroad union negotiations as the “cooling-off” period for those negotiations expires on 16 September. Some negotiation progress has been reported and three of the twelve railroad unions have reached a tentative agreement.
