Dry Bulk – Capesize Rates to Fall on Excess Tonnage, Uncertain Demand - Maritime and Salvage Wolrd News

By Keith Wallis

SINGAPORE, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Freight charges for capesize bulk carriers are set to slip additional subsequent week, after falling to their lowest stage in 5 weeks, as a result of a mounting provide of tonnage and unsure cargo demand, ship brokers stated on Thursday.

“There’s too many ships in the Pacific. There’s a lot of ballasters (empty ships) sailing to Brazil,” a Singapore-based ship dealer stated.

Capesize freight charges from Australia to China may fall to round $5-$5.20 a tonne subsequent week on this overcapacity, with charges from Brazil to China at $12.50 to $12.75 a tonne, a Shanghai-based capesize dealer stated on Thursday.

While main charterers together with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton had been lively this week, only a handful of spot iron ore cargoes had been concluded with nearly no coal fixtures.

A raft of transatlantic coal and iron ore cargoes helped push capesize charges to their highest stage in eight months in early August, however this enterprise has evaporated inflicting spot freight charges to steadily fall.

“Coal used to be the all-important dry bulk commodity,” stated Peter Sand, chief transport analyst at transport business foyer group BIMCO.

The steam coal commerce between China and South Africa, which accounted for 8 % of China’s steam coal imports in 2013, has disappeared because of the general decline in China’s coal imports and a larger proportion of volumes from Australia and Indonesia, Sand stated.

“China’s coal trade with South Africa was beneficial to seaborne trade as the sailing distance is twice as long as from Australia and Indonesia. As of right now it has been over a year since a shipment of steam coal heading for China left South Africa,” Sand stated.

Charter charges for the Western Australia-China route dropped to round $5.74 a tonne on Wednesday, down from $6.30 a tonne every week in the past, though the final concluded fixture was already decrease at $5.60 per tonne, the Singapore dealer stated.

Rates for the Brazil-China route fell to $13.58 per tonne on Wednesday, towards $14.77 per tonne final Wednesday, the best since Dec. 4.

Freight charges for smaller panamax vessels will possible climb subsequent week on robust U.S. and east coast South America grain volumes, a Singapore-based panamax ship dealer stated on Thursday.

Panamax vessels transporting these grain cargoes are being chartered for about $8,500-$9,000 per day, in contrast with $6,500 per day for a transpacific voyage, the dealer stated.

Freight charges for smaller supramax vessels may additionally climb, supported by South American grain cargoes, Norwegian ship dealer Fearnley stated in a observe on Wednesday.

The Baltic Exchange’s major sea freight index fell to 1,031 on Wednesday from 1,093 on the identical day final week. (Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)