UNITED KINGDOM September 01 2016 3:26 PM
LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities down to 711 points on Wednesday driven by higher cape 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, down to 4 points to 711 points on Wednesday.
The BDI has performed fairly well amid the wrap-up of summer as optimism that shipping demand will remain robust through the end of the year has supported the index.
Since collapsing last winter to below 300 points the BDI has recovered as ship hire rates and demand improved.
This summer, strength in the BDI mostly followed renewed demand to ship coal to China as the country scales back its domestic coal production in order improve emissions, but increased demand to ship many raw materials aided the upside.