After consecutive falls, the dry bulk freight market, as followed through the Baltic Dry Index, finally caught a breather yesterday, with the BDI managing to post small gains of 0.72% to reach 1,259 points. While, these levels are among the lowest this year and by far the lowest since the start of 2009, demand seems to be picking up recently, especially for thermal coal cargoes. As a result, the Panamax market, which had been severely suffering lately, finally managed to get up to speed and post increases of 2.05% on a daily basis, with the relative Baltic Panamax Index (BPI) reaching 1,392 points. On a similar note, the Capesize market ended on positive territory yesterday, reaching 1,566 points, up by 1.29%. Still, average earnings for the heavily oversupplied Capesize segment of the market, remain below break-even levels and well below this year’s forecasts by leading investment and shipbroker firms.
According to the latest weekly report from shipbroker Fearnley’s, as expected the end of last week was quiet for the Capesize sector, due to the Easter Holidays. “This working week started flat, but a flurry of activity on the Pacific drove the rates back up to the upper usd 7.00 mark for West Australia/China. Activity on front haul has been limited but a fixture has been reported at a usd 19.80 for Brazil/China which is a welcome rise on this route. Period has been dominated by owners re-fixing vessels prematurely redelivered off long Charters, thus pushing the level for 12 months down to usd 12k´s. Longer term charters have been concluded on 206kdwt vessels at usd 20k for 5 years. The Atlantic market remains very quiet despite low coal stocks on the Continent. The index has remained largely flat but with a slight positive trend” said Fearnley’s.
Commenting on the Panamax market it mentioned that it has been oversupplied with tonnage, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific lately, although activity picked up towards end of last week and cleared out some of the tonnage overhang. “The market remained nervous early this week as well, as most of Europe came back from Easter holidays. Rates in Atlantic remained more or less the same with TA´s around USD 10-12k, and fronthauls fixed in the USD 20k region. The Far East remained over-tonnaged with rates around 8-10k, but mid week activity and rates indicated signs of some recovery. Period business vague but all the way down to mid 12 for 4-6. The FFA market traded stronger and volumes fair” said the report.
As for the Handy/Supramax markets, “in the Atlantic, little changes in rates and a very quiet start to the week. Not many fresh enquiries - it seems Owners and Charterers try to figure out which direction the market will take. A further bank holiday on Monday, England, will surely affect the market with consecutive short weeks – traders will most probably stand by. We expect more enquiries to hit the market in the next weeks (from mid-May?) but will this be enough to stop it from declining and absorb the ever increasing spot tonnage in the Atlantic? The market will remain volatile and positional. Pacific market remains quiet. For Indo-India, Supras in N.China get close to 13k. WCI-China rates slided to 15k - from ECI around 14k, but few ships seen ballasting to Indonesia as not much cargoes ex-ECI. Red Sea, ferts on Hmax/Supras are fixed at very mid 20´s pmt on voyage basis to WCI. Not too much activity on short period as market bit volatile and speculative and hear index type vessels fixed at midteens” concluded the shipbroker.
It also noted the increased newbuilding activity during the past week. Fearnley’s reported increased investments in the container and LNG sectors. In total, 27 container vessels, plus options, have been contracted over the last two weeks. “Seaspan Corp. has placed a huge newbuilding contract at STX for 10 firm plus 10 optional 14,000TEU container vessels. This order comes only few weeks after ordering a series of 10,000TEU vessels at the Yangzijiang shipyard in China. We see great activity in the LNG sector and expect more orders to come over the next few weeks” said the report.
Source: Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping, coalspot
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