Baltic Dry Index continues to stay above 1,000 points

UNITED KINGDOM May 10 2017 12:37 PM

LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities continued to stay above 1,000 points on Tuesday led by higher cape, panamax and supramax indices.

The Baltic Dry Index, which provides an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials – such as coal, iron ore and grain – by sea by taking in 23 shipping routes measured on a time charter basis, up by another 06 points to 1007 points on Tuesday.

Seaborne trade appears to be in a bit of a lull right now. While shipping activity does slow in the summer, the recent pullback has come early in the season. 

Looking later in the year, to the fall season which can see another uptick in demand there is hope that China’s crackdown on the production of raw materials to curb pollution will result in increased seaborne trade.