DRY: The first six months of 2008 have included not only fresh all-time highs for the Baltic Exchange Dry Index and Baltic Capesize Index, but also the most volatile six months on record for the Capesize market. The BDI climbed to a new record high of 11,793 points on 20 May. The gains were powered to a large extent by the booming Capesize market. The BCI hit 19,687 points on 5 June, with average earnings at $233,988/day, more than 20% above the November 2007 peak.
Volatility reached new heights in the 1h08. The Capesize 4TC moved by an astonishing 15% in one day on two occasions (30 January and 12 June), while daily movements of 5%+ have occurred 21 times since the turn of the year. The average daily movement during the 1h08 to date was 2.86%, virtually double the 1.46% average daily movement in 2004-07 inclusive.
Although the Baltic Panamax and Supramax Indices did not climb to record levels, both markets experienced volatility: the Panamax 4TC ranged between $44,363/day and $91,710/day, with the Supramax 5TC moving between a low of $39,976/day and high of $70,507/day.
TANKERS: Crude tanker markets for the first half of 2008 traded at very firm levels on average – particularly the VLCC market through the second quarter. The BITR quoted TD3 edged towards the high of W252 seen at the start of the year and reached W241 at the end of June. Buoyant crude import demand from the Asia Pacific at a time of only modest net fleet growth for the VLCC sector was the major driver of this expansion. China has raised its refinery throughput ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games leading to record crude import volumes and Japan is increasingly using alternative sources of energy (including fuel oil and crude) to help meet the shortfall in electricity generation as its nuclear power sector falls short.
Downside pressure on the clean markets was evident in the first part of 2008, but in the second quarter, rates were supported by a rise in tonne-mile in the Atlantic due to a surge in US product exports as import demand for gasoil in Europe and Latin America expanded. BITR quoted TC2 rose to W286.25 in late June. In Asian trades, a more recent rise in rates followed the ramping up of product imports into China ahead of the August Games, plus a pick up in Australian gasoil imports and naphtha into the East Asian market.
News
Richards Bay Throughput
06-10-2008
Coal exports from Richards Bay in September were similar to the previous month at 5.32 Mt, Bloomberg reports. Coal supplies at Richards Bay faced disruption in September due to two derailments and ... [more]
Resumption of Argentine farmers strike
03-10-2008
According to the Argentine Agrarian Federation, Argentine farmers have resumed protests starting today. The action is planned to last six days. This news helped to push the soybeans price upwards for ... [more]
South Korean crude imports increase
03-10-2008
South Korean crude imports averaged 2.27 mb/d in August, up 2% y-o-y, Petroleum Intelligence reports. Imports from biggest supplier Saudi Arabia rose almost 20% to 873 kb/d, while imports from the ... [more]
China PMI in September rebounds
02-10-2008
The average PMI (purchasing managers’ indices) of the major Western world economies declined to 44.4 in September, indicating that manufacturing in these countries under negative pressure. ... [more]
Taxes cut to boost Russian crude oil exports
02-10-2008
Reacting to the sharp fall in oil prices, the Russian finance ministry announced in mid-September that it would cut the oil export duty to $372.20 per ton ($50.78 per barrel) in October-November, ... [more]
Events
Tanker Investments
04-09-2008 - 00-00-0000
SSY presented a paper on the tanker markets at IBC’s Energy Shipping 2008 in Singapore in early September. Louisa Follis, General Manager of SSY Research in Singapore gave the presentation on newbuilding and ordering trends in 2008 with particular ... [more]
Biofuels: A New Shipping Market
25-06-2008 - 25-06-2008
Thor Emil Brandrud from SSY’s Bioenergy department spoke at the inaugural "Biofuels: A New Shipping Market" conference on 25th June in London, organised by Lloyd’s List Events. He presented on Biomass from a Dry Bulk ... [more]
Coaltrans Asia
01-06-2008 - 04-06-2008
Derek Langston, Research Manager at SSY Consultancy & Research in Singapore, gave a paper at the 14th Coaltrans Asia on 3 June in Bali, Indonesia. His presentation posed the question “Any Relief for Charterers?” from high freight rates and ... [more]
Markets
Sale & Purchase
03-10-2008
The Dry Bulk market has experienced another week of falling rates with the BDI moving below 3,000 on Thursday but recovering slightly to push just above the 3,000 mark at week ... [more]
Dry Cargo
Capesize
03-10-2008
The Cape market continued to fall, losing 13 pct in value over the week, but there has been a gentle rise in sentiment in the last two ... [more]
Atlantic Panamax
03-10-2008
The week started with rates being heavily pushed down and negative sentiment driving the market. TransAtlantic round voyages reached low ... [more]
Pacific Panamax
03-10-2008
It was always going to be difficult to surpass or even match the nature of the events of last week and, predictably perhaps, this week was ... [more]
Atlantic Handysize
03-10-2008
The storm clouds gathered over the Atlantic market this week with rates slipping drastically across the board. The number of early tonnage ... [more]
Pacific Handysize
03-10-2008
This week the softening in the Handymax Pacific rates continued. At the beginning of the week there was no light at the end of the tunnel ... [more]
Tankers
06-10-2008
Mixed conditions were observed in the VLCC sector with Eastbound trades softening slightly as rates for 260K MEG – Japan slid from W150 to ... [more]
Chemicals
29-09-2008
Americas: There are still a large number of ships lined up to either load or discharge in the Houston area, and it is still unclear what ... [more]
Gas
LNG
24-09-2008
Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries has confirmed that it has secured an order worth US$568m from Monaco-based SBM and partner Linde ... [more]
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