Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: I did not find any big news to report this week. Global Dry-Bulk markets were lower for the week, and I believe the main cause was simple market repositioning. As mentioned previously, Baltic Traders got a bit ahead of themselves with the over-zealous buying throughout the past month. Now reality is setting in and some are taking their lumps. The Baltic Indices have retreated back to levels traded about 12 weeks ago. So, we are still in a market that is searching for cargo to offset the continuing vessel oversupply.
Below is a recent history of freight values for Capesize vessels of iron ore from Western Australia to China:
The charts below represent YTD 2017 versus 2016 annual totals for container shipments to Vietnam.
