BALTIC MAIN INDEX EDGES DOWN ON WEAKER CAPESIZE RATES
The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, was marginally down on Wednesday, weighed by weaker rates for capesize vessels. The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was down 5 points, or 0.57 percent, at 865 points. The capesize index slipped 80 points, or 5.55 percent, to 1,362 points. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tone cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were down $724 to $10,541.
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BANGLADESH WATERWAYS TO BECOME COMPETITIVE TRANSPORT MODE
Bangladesh Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan has said that the government will make every effort to make the waterways a competitive transport mode for the private sector.
“We will make every effort to make the waterways a competitive transport mode for the private sector. This means seamless interchange between water transport and other modes to enable efficient multimodal door-to-door service,” he said while speaking at a workshop organized last week by the Word Bank titled ‘The unlocking the transformative power of waterways’ at a city hotel in association with the ministries of shipping and industries and the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
The shipping minister said it is evident that investments in road and railways alone will not be enough to accommodate the anticipated growth in freight and passenger movement over the coming decades.
The minister said the government will scale up investments to provide sustained navigability of the country’s waterways, modernize existing river ports, build new ports and multimodal logistics centres to improve cargo and passenger handling, and ensure efficiency and safety of all vessels plying in rivers.
He said the government has identified 65 main river navigation routes that are essential for passenger and freight transportation within Bangladesh.
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GROWTH OF DPD IN 2017
|
||
|---|---|---|
|
Month
|
TEU under DPD
|
YoY in %
|
|
Jan
|
7,175
|
106
|
|
Feb
|
28,757
|
690
|
|
Mar
|
38,394
|
562
|
|
Apr
|
40,085
|
452
|
|
May
|
41,241
|
572
|
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CARGO VOLUMES INCH GAIN AT PORTS OF LOS ANGELES AND LONG BEACH
Container cargo volumes at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports inched up last month compared with the same time last year, sparking optimism at both facilities.
The National Retail Federation expects some of the largest import volumes at container ports ever as consumer demand continues to hold, even though growth has slowed since the start of the year.
Year to date, cargo traffic has risen 4.1 percent in Long Beach and 8.5 percent in Los Angeles. At the Los Angeles port, May imports increased 3.1 percent and exports rose 4.4 percent. There was a 3.1 percent rise in empty containers.
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COAL INDIA PLANS JV WITH PARADIP PORT
State-owned Coal India is planning joint venture with government-controlled Paradip Port to sell blended coal as per consumer’s requirement for better value realization. Coal India offers source-specific linkages for raw coal to power generation utilities. The company has subsidiary-based notified prices for different types of coal determined by gross calorific value (GCV). The model suffers from a range of inadequacies.
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NEWBUILDING ACTIVITY KEEPS STRENGTHENING
Even excluding major newbuilding deals, the market seems to be strengthening over the past couple of months, something evidenced even by the growing numbers which are being report from South Korean shipyards lately.
In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “we still seem to have a market mainly driven by major deals, with this week, information emerging regarding Trafigura’s large tanker order as part of a leasing deal with China’s Bank of Communications Financial Leasing. Overall however and even when one excludes these large enbloc deals, activity has been strengthening somewhat over the past couple of weeks.”
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VLCC MARKET IMPROVES MODESTLY THIS WEEK
Qatar’s tension hasn’t dented the tanker market in the Middle East. In its latest weekly report, it is mentioned that rates in the VLCC market improved modestly this week as the participants reacted to a progressively narrowing supply/demand balance during the June Middle East program.
Fundamentals dictate that rates would likely have pushed higher, but were capped by a slower pace of demand in the Middle East this week and the fact that 38 percent of cargoes there were covered under COA (the highest COA coverage rate in three months).