Capesize (Atlantic and Pacific)
An even week on the Capesizes with the Brazil/China route improving a little to reach almost $ 29.00 but then falling down again to $28.30 on Friday. In the Pacific the strong iron ore demand for September saw rates stabilized at around the $ 10.25/10.50 level. The Atlantic market has seen a little better levels of enquiry but without substantial changes. Period activity was very poor except TMT who reported having taken the Vitol's M/v Mineral Kyushu for 4/6 months at usd 35,000 daily. The BCI closed the week at minus 56 points, the average of 4 T/c routes lost $ 384.
Panamax (Atlantic and Pacific)
The different levels between the Atlantic and the Pacific still gave opportunities for vessels in Asia to South East Coast South America employments while tonnage in North China and Korea were able to secure better levels from the USG which in turn had a positive effect on levels in Asia. Although Atlantic levels were better than the Pacific ones, rates eased during the course of the week.
Handy (Far East/Pacific)
Owners started to show some resistance to charterers' attempts to try to keep such low rates, especially for business bound to Indian Ocean due to the further lack of business and very unattractive rates. Market became positional with some supramax vessels managing to achieve slightly better rates both for the Pacific/ Australian round trips and short period commitments. The firmer rates paid to tonnage available in these waters for trips via the USG back to the East were adding strength to owners' resistance and may assist rates for local business to pick up a little further.
Handy (North Europe/Mediterranean)
A stable flow of fresh enquiry connected with the still scarce availability of tonnage kept this area stable and quite firm for owners. While the chartering activity concluded for loading out of North European area still managed to be kept confidential, reports were widely confirming how nicely the Black Sea and Mediterranean markets were developing. A solid volume of enquiry out of the Black Sea allowed owners to fix their tonnage basis delivery Indian Ocean for a Black Sea round and fetch much better figures compared to local business. Fresh activity of fertilizers out of North Africa to the East led to a few quite interesting fixtures concluded.
Handy (USA/N.Atlantic/Lakes/S.America)
Demand for loading grains and minerals out of the USG still carried on at full speed, and easily absorbed ballasters from the East and the West, with agreed rates seen further improving. Now we have to see how long the market will be able to support this situation, considering that the panamax and cape market are presently following an opposite trend. Some charterers will likely try to increase their stems to panamax sizes to push rates down. Activity from South America was good enough but not as good as in the Gulf, where the Indian Ocean ballasters manage to keep rates to increase over certain levels, and even if the enquiry volume was large, there have been several cases of fixing and failing.
Handy (Indian Ocean/South Africa)
There is not much to say around this market area which kept showing dull activity for owners. The week carried on with an on-going poor demand for tonnage to load iron ore from India to China. A few coal charterers entertained business loading from South Africa, smartly trying to book forward business at low rate. Some fresh iron ore enquiry quoted towards the end of the week connected with few better paid fixtures brought a little bit fresh air to owners.
Banchero Costa and Co Spa
Mail: research@bancosta.it
Web: www.bancosta.it