Supramax Commentary
ATLANTIC
It was another busy week in the US Gulf with a good number of vessels fixed, adding to the sense that the market has found a floor and especially for the early September loading position. More fronthaul demand has appeared for the first half of September and rates have risen as a result.
The US Gulf market was also helped by the continued, relative strength of the South American market that has provided an escape route for a few prompt vessels open in North Coast South America and even the US East Coast.
Owners are still presented with a very real need to ballast away from the Continent and the mood remains subdued in the Med and even though there is a lot of talk about renewed grain exports from Ukraine, the volumes remain limited so far.
PACIFIC
The market staged a recovery after sustained weeks of down-ward pressure which bucked the trend of larger vessels where sentiment was overwhelmingly negative. With news of China importing coal in large amounts due to a heatwave, there was an influx of spot coal cargoes out of Indonesia, while in the Pacific Northwest was also active. This positive sentiment also led to a more active period market.
Handysize Commentary
ATLANTIC
CONT: still under pressure with high competition and decreasing rates. We still see a steady overload of ships compared to cargoes entering the market. This could be due to the unwillingness of fixing cargoes out of Russia.
MED/B.SEA: There haven’t been any big changes, activity is still a bit slow and charterers underbidding ships. This results in more ships being played spot till finding the exact cargo. We do see more and more willing to sail Ukraine again, and this makes a better balance compared to the last couple of months. At last we hear that major grain houses purchase Ukrainian wheat, and we could see that Black Sea market get some life back after a very lackluster summer.
ECSA: has continued the same trajectory as last week with an oversupply of Handies, especially for spot dates. Some charterers reported that prompt ships were offering to wait for Sep laydays to fix this side of the weekend.
USG/USEC: Not the biggest activity. Still overload of ships, but we see more and more cargoes entering the market with Sep dates, which will hopefully influence the future. It will be interesting to see which direction the market will go in September although little positivity remains.
PACIFIC
A more dynamic week with increased activity, but overall flat rates as there were many prompt ships to clear out. Cargo out of Australia helped take some pressure off north vessels as the SE Asia tonnage list decreased as the week went on. Sentiment was slightly positive at the end of the week, but we need to see plenty more cargo for rates to improve.
INDIAN OCEAN
Handy market of Indian Ocean still struggling to secure the cargoes and despite of steel movement market has not been re-covered. It’s still at the lowest end compare of other regions. Apart from steels and coastal alumina hardly any cargo is moving out of India and leading towards spot tonnages count higher in the area with low cargo volume. Vessels have started ballasting to pacific or towards South Africa in search of good cargoes but getting disappointed as these ships are unable to compete with the ships already opening in the area due to ballast journey.
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