Supramax bulker spot rates made some headway this past week on the US Gulf Coast while Asia focused on Golden Week, but they may plateau over the next seven days, brokers said.
The average spot rate for the Baltic Exchange’s S1C voyage from the Gulf Coast to Asia improved 8.2% over the past week to $25,086 per day on Friday, while the average rate for the S4A from the region to Europe gained 6.6% over the same period to reach $21,235 per day on Friday.
“The US Gulf bounced back after a recent lull, with the ultramax size now seeing in the upper $20,000s for trips to Singapore-Japan,” Baltic Exchange analysts wrote on Friday in their weekly dry bulk market wrap-up.
“With the widespread holidays during the week, action mainly centred around the Atlantic basin.”
But grain orders out of the US Gulf Coast have slowed due to drought causing delays in the Mississippi River, causing spot rates from “gaining steam” and below spot rates seen off the US East Coast, according to US brokerage firm BRS Group.
“Some owners have even started ballasting to [the east coast of South America] in order to gain from the growing market there instead of waiting around,” the outfit said in a note on Friday.
“With the supply of tonnage growing but at a snail’s pace, we are likely to see rates remain at a similar level next week — but may tick up if the flow of market orders increases.”
The Supramax 10TC basket of spot-rate averages across 10 key routes rose 4.3% over the past week to $18,763 on Friday, reaching the highest point since late August.
Other ship sizes saw higher average spot rates over the week.
The Capesize 5TC gained 4.4% over the week to $19,874 per day on Friday over the seven-day period, though it did slip 4.4% on Friday despite brokers remaining more optimistic on the Atlantic basin, Baltic Exchange analysts said.
“In the Pacific, there were only a couple of major charterers around looking for tonnage to end the week, as such rates remained relatively steady,” they said.
The exchange’s Panamax 5TC gained 7.3% over thew week to $20,116 per day on Friday, while the Handysize 7TC edged up 2.4% to $18,588 per day over the same time frame.
The panamax sector was a “tail of two halves this week as the Atlantic thrived whilst the Pacific floundered”, UK broker Braemar said on Friday in its weekly assessment of the dry bulk market.
“The Atlantic was predominantly driven by the grain and mineral markets whilst the transatlantic route provided supplementary support on the back of the early forward momentum. Conversely the Pacific struggled to really get going.”
