Ore Ships Have Best Month Since May 2009 as China Demand Gains

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Aug 2010

The cost of delivering iron ore by sea had its largest monthly advance since May 2009 after Chinese steel mills increased imports of the steelmaking raw material. Charter rates for capesize carriers climbed 2.2 percent today to $34,488 a day , taking their monthly advance to 130 percent, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. They gained 212 percent in May last year.
“The Chinese have been buying like crazy in July and August,” Erik Stavseth, an analyst at Arctic Securities ASA in Oslo, said by phone today. Chinese iron ore imports climbed 8.7 percent to 51.28 million metric tons in July from the previous month, according to customs data.
Strengthening Chinese iron ore purchasing allowed owners to overcome a market in which the supply of vessels is swelling at about twice the pace of seaborne trade in raw materials. There’s now “more downside than upside” for freight rates, Stavseth said.
The Baltic Dry Index, a wider measure of shipping costs spanning iron ore, coal, grains and other commodities, rose 0.04 percent to 2,713 points, according to the Baltic Exchange.
Charter rates fell for the smaller ship types the exchange tracks. Panamaxes lost 0.9 percent to $23,712 a day; supramaxes slipped 2.1 percent to $21,601; and handysizes declined 0.1 percent to $15,835.
The carrying capacity of the fleet rose 14 percent to 500 million deadweight tons since August 2009, according to data from Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker. Seaborne trade in commodities will expand 7.6 percent this year, it estimates.
A five-year-old capesize vessel costs $57.3 million, according to the exchange. Its freight rate assessments are based on carrying capacities of 172,000 deadweight tons for capesizes, 74,000 tons for panamaxes, and 52,454 tons for supramaxes.

Source: Alaric Nightingale, Bloomberg