Capesize (Atlantic and Pacific)
It seems there is no end to the drop in Capesize Market: last week BCI registered again a loss of 525 points, equivalent to minus Usd 5,826 on the 4 T/c routes. There are too many ships on the market chasing few cargoes and therefore the spot market is keeping to plumb down each week with some Owners starting to consider the lay-up option for their ships. Many ships have anyhow been idle for several days.
Brazil to China iron ore route have been fixed down to Usd 17.00/mt while the iron ore from West Australia to China is fixing at just above Usd 7.00/mt. Time Charter activity was negligible with the front-haul rate running at just below Usd 30,000 and the T/A at about Usd 19,000 daily.
Panamax (Atlantic and Pacific)
Still a very depressive market all around. Atlantic basin showed a very big drop on rates this week, as the lack of trans-Atlantic mineral/grain fresh orders pushed many owners with ships on at high rates to fix the quick rounds at cheap rate. The Pacific saw a severe cut in rates but there was just a sign of the market calming down as charterers took advantage of easier numbers to take forward tonnage. There were still ballasters struggling to fix. Charterers continued to take ships in the Indian Ocean area and Southeast Asia for East Coast South American rounds.
Handy (Far East/Pacific)
Most of reported fixtures done in this area were Indo - India trip, or Indo -Feast trip. The route to India was still seeing rates starting with the figure 2 (just one vessel did less than $20,000 daily), while trip to Feast was heading towards the mid teen level. Basically there was no period activity, charterers were trying to secure tonnage at very low rates, but owners still had confidence in the market keeping rates higher than spot market.
Handy (North Europe/Mediterranean)
From the Black Sea we have seen just few cargoes of fertilizer going to SE Asia, for which a Supramax was able to get high 20k bss dely Cannakale. A bit more activity from the Continent and the Baltic, few fresh cargoes of fertilizer to the Feast and S.America, and some scrap to the Feast via the Baltic have been able to keep rates from these areas at a quite decent level.
Handy (USA/N.Atlantic/Lakes/S.America)
Apart from few very aggressive fixtures (basically for spot vessels) rates remained quite good, and trip to Med gained a few dollars. There were many ships open in the area, but there were still many cargoes coming out from USG and NCS America. Some new scrap business helped to maintain rates at the last week level. Rates from South America were still going down; probably one of the reasons is the strong congestions in many Brazilian and Argentinean ports.
Handy (Indian Ocean/South Africa)
Fewer cargoes open in the market with just some orders from South Africa, and basically no orders for India to china route. Richard Bay round was getting very close to the mid teens level for destination India and MEG. And most of charterers were starting to give rates only bss aps Richards bay. Even if the South America market was not so healthy, many ships were ballasting towards that direction.
Banchero Costa and Co Spa
Mail: research@bancosta.it
Web: http://www.bancosta.it/