Fearnleys Dry Bulk Market Report

Capesize Freight rates remain at record low levels, more or less unchanged from last week. Iron ore out of Australia is steady whilst the operations out of Tubarao resumed at the beginning of this week after having been suspended last week due to environmental concerns. Shipowners are faced with difficult questions; To scrap or lay-up tonnage or to continue trading. So far most owners are taking a wait and see attitude, however if present freight- levels remain, the latter may be difficult. Panamax Nowhere to hide in the Panamax market with new all-time-lows all across the block. Owners are reluctant to fix the levels offered, and activity is low. Even challenging INL breach or iceclass requirements in the Atl is fixed at the poor levels offered.TA rounds south of 2K on T/C and fronthaul, although at limited pace < 20 pmt from USG and 12 pmt from ECSA. The Eastern hemisphere is slow and affected by holidays down under and in India. Modern units get < 2K in return, bss APS and waiting days. The only increase we see is in scrapping and poss lay-up. Period market hardly evident, with a few index linked agreements reported. The forward curve is not particulary volatile at 4300 rest of year and 5300 for C ... Handy We are breaking records every day now. We are down to levels where lay up costs are more interesting than letting your ship go for another round. Short periods on Tess 58’s are fixed in the mid 3’s for Feast delivery. Indo rounds are fixing at USD 1,500 bss Spore delivery. Indo/India trips are done at ard USD 2,500 bss APS delivery. In the Atlantic we see the same tendency with rates slipping even further. TA’s paying in the mid 3k while USG/Cont can get in the 6k’s. The Chinese New Year is approaching and it seems that market players are not too optimistic for the short/medium term. We reckon the 1 year period rate would be at ard 5k flat as owners would hesitate to lock in less for 1 year.