Even if quite a large volume of iron ore has been fixed last week from Brazil and West Australia mainly to China, the market remain basically unchanged and even continued to slide. Main players were Vale, from Brazil and BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto from West Australia. The Baltic Capesize Index, B.C.I. lost 130 points and the Baltic 4 T/c routes $ 1,357. Brazil to China iron ore rates was fixed at just above $ 15's while the West Australia to China at about high $ 6's with the Transatlantic activity very close to null equating to about $ 16,000's for one transatlantic round.
Panamax (Atlantic and Pacific)
Atlantic market rates still under pressure and an over-abundance of tonnage still available: most of the spot/prompt business has been fixed and very few cargoes remain. Trans-Atlantic round was reported done at a softer Usd 9,500 daily, but rumours said there was late talk of business done as low as $8,000 daily. Pacific market seems even worse with many ships ballasting from Pacific basin to escape from the long list of open tonnage and from the weak rates seen in that area. This had bad effect of limiting the upside potential for Atlantic ships. NoPac rounds saw rates drop this week to end at around $7,500 daily. The only region that maintains acceptable levels is the Black Sea/Med with rates continuing to show good rates. A little more activity has been noticed for long/medium period business.
Handy (Far East/Pacific)
The market around this area went back to quite a dull atmosphere. Charterers' interest for period fixing faded away, even if some fixtures were reported concluded. The agreed levels remain unattractive, as the amount of tonnage still available is too much. The majority of the deals were concluded for Middle East direction where levels are now similar to the Pacific ones one week ago. Also Handysize rates were going south, only rates for backhaul employments stopped collapsing and occasionally saw some small improvements, both for larger and smaller tonnage.
Handy (North Europe/Mediterranean)
This week the North European market showed to be probably the healthiest sector, activity is mostly concentrating on Handysize requirements for which there are serious shortage of tonnage in the area. Nice rates were agreed for vessels dely Med for loading Cont cargoes back to Med. Demand was less from Black Sea, especially for Eastbound destinations, this allowed a number of outbound positioning cargoes to get fixed at lower rates.
Handy (USA/N.Atlantic/Lakes/S.America)
An unexpected number of fresh enquiries coming open did not bring sofar any serious benefit to the chartering market loading out of Atlantic Americas. A couple of deals concluded at higher levels where justified by positional reasons. The ongoing fixing and failing is preventing rates to increase, even with a larger volume of demand. Several vessels becoming available in the Persian Gulf - Indian Ocean regions, kept competing with Atlantic positions on the South American trade, and several managed as well to get fixed against other tonnage becoming available closer to the loading area.
Handy (Indian Ocean/South Africa)
The bulk of activity again was dominated by the India / China iron ore trade. Initially rates couldn't manage to achieve any benefit because of a huge amount of unemployed tonnage. Later some of the tonnage was fixed and South American loadings managed to show some rate improvement at the end of the week.
Banchero Costa and Co Spa
Mail: research@bancosta.it
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