Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: The Baltic Dry-Bulk indices eked out some small gains this week but not enough to move the needle very much. We are still locked into a narrow trading range and waiting for something meaningful to happen in the supply versus demand balance equation. The Capesize sector finally gave up much of its gains over the past 5-6 weeks and settled considerably lower. Weaker Chinese demand for iron ore is the primary cause. This, of course, did not help rates in the Panamax sector.
Vessel owners must be careful about placing orders for new ships, as the new build order book is slowly increasing while the vessel scrapping rates are plunging.
The charts below represent 2018 YTD totals versus 2017 annual totals for container shipments to the Philippines.
