Main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange edges up to 682 points

UNITED KINGDOM August 22 2016 8:13 PM

LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities edged up to 683 points on Friday driven by higher cape, panamax and supramax rates.

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, slightly up by 01 points to 683 points on Friday.

The BDI has managed to trade just below 700 points over the past few weeks even though demand for cargoes has been somewhat muted. 

The reason for the resilience has been the hope that if August activity is low, then September shipping activity should heat up in preparation for the upcoming winter.