Capesize Rates at Six-Year Lows, Could Slide Further

By Keith Wallis

SINGAPORE Jan 8 (Reuters) – Rates for capesize bulk carriers have plunged to contemporary six-year lows and will fall additional with cargoes scarce within the post-holiday interval, brokers stated.

“There are still a lot of ships that are anchored off South Africa, Singapore and Taiwan with not a lot of cargo volume to soak them up,” a Singapore capesize dealer stated on Thursday. “Rates are still coming off.”

Some European house owners are selecting to anchor vessels moderately than lease their ships at a loss, the dealer stated.

Charter charges for a voyage from Australia to China are round $3,000 per day, lower than half each day working prices, based on information from British transport providers agency Clarkson.

Rio Tinto was the one lively charterer among the many massive miners up to now week, leasing all six vessels that have been mounted from Australia to China, Reuters chartering information confirmed.

Brazilian iron ore miner Vale may spark a flurry of chartering exercise to take care of cargo volumes in February, a transfer that would see charges rebound, the capesize dealer stated.

Just six of its 33 huge Valemax ships are heading to Asia to unload iron ore in February, Reuters ship monitoring information confirmed. Sixteen of the 400,000 deadweight tonne vessels have been in or heading to Asia already to unload in January, based on the info.

Charter charges for the Western Australia-China route fell to $4.58 per tonne on Wednesday, the bottom stage since December 2008.

Rates for the Brazil-China route have been right down to $10.22 per tonne on Wednesday, the bottom since January 2009.

Freight charges may drop additional, Norwegian ship dealer Fearnley stated in a weekly word on Wednesday.

Rates within the smaller panamax market have been trending decrease though resistance was constructing amongst house owners towards additional fee falls, a Singapore-based panamax dealer stated on Thursday.

“Owners are showing a pretty united front. They are not going to move ships at current rates. I haven’t seen anyone break the picket line,” he stated.

Rates for a panamax transpacific voyage fell to $5,090 a day on Wednesday, the bottom stage since Aug. 28, 2014.

Freight charges for smaller supramax bulk carriers had fallen to beneath $8,000 per day for a roundtrip from Indonesia, Fearnley stated in its weekly word.

The Baltic Exchange’s predominant sea freight index closed down at 744 on Wednesday towards 782 on Dec. 24 forward of the year-end vacation. Technical evaluation confirmed the benchmark could drop in the direction of 677 in per week. (Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Joseph Radford)