Baltic Dry Index Pushes Up With Rising Capesize and Smaller Vessel Rates

March 23(Reuters) – The Baltic Exchange’s fundamental sea freight index, which tracks charges for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, continued to rise on Monday, supported by constructive capesize and smaller vessel charges.

The index, which components within the common day by day earnings of capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize dry bulk transport vessels, was up three factors, or 0.51 p.c, at 594 factors.

The capesize index rose 12 factors, or 2.84 p.c, to 435 factors.

Average day by day earnings for capesizes, which generally transport 150,000-tonne cargoes reminiscent of iron ore and coal, rose $33 to $4,207.

The panamax index remained flat at 617 factors.

Average day by day earnings for panamaxes, which often carry 60,000 to 70,000-tonne cargoes of coal or grains, slipped by a greenback to $4,940.

“Dry bulk shipping demand growth should continue to outpace dry bulk shipping supply growth over the next 12 months, resulting in improving market conditions through at least 2015,” Jefferies analyst Douglas Mavrinac stated in a be aware on Monday.

The indexes for comparatively smaller vessels — handysize and supramax have been up two factors at 386 factors and 5 factors at 640 factors respectively. (Reporting by Anupam Chatterjee in Bengaluru, enhancing by David Evans)