Easter break brings little respite for owners
The Easter break has had an impact on market rates with the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) down again to 1250 points by Tuesday 26 April. The Panamax segment once again suffered the bulk of the losses and over the course of the last week the Baltic Panamax Index eased by an equivalent US$1000 in all basins which represented a significant loss of around 10% on prevailing market levels.
A lack of cargoes worldwide is seen as the main culprit with a large number of vessels looking for spot business report brokers at Barry Rogliano in Paris. Period activity was noted as the most impacted market as it lost US$2500/day over this last week, opening the week at US$14,500/day and closing it US$12,000/12,500/day for a typical 74,000t unit.
In the Supramax/Handy sectors markets are typified by a slow slide in the Supramax sector with the related BSI index losing just 13 points over the Easter break to reach an average of the TC routes of US$14,645. Out of the US Gulf, owners were reportedly fixing their Supras around US$23,000 daily for redelivery Skaw-Passero range, Europe, whereas redelivery Singapore/Japan were reportedly being fixed in the low US$30,000s.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Black Sea/Med area has not improved much in recent days, most of the ships available for spot/period hire were ballasting out, with the lucky ones fixing clinker or steel, predominantly out of Turkey.
The Supramax market in the Pacific has been on a downturn since last week. Some owners were were trying to resist recent pressures as they apparently feel market will bounce back in early May due to more iron ore, nickel ore cargoes becoming available, but as yet charterers are seemingly pulling rates further down. WCI India iron ore stems have increased recently as miners are trying to move as much out as possible before the monsoons start, concludes Rogliano.
Published under Cement News
