Main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange falls further to 894 points

UNITED STATES January 13 2017 2:27 PM

LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities fell further to 892 points on Thursday mainly due to lower cape 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, dropped by another 2 points to 892 points on Tuesday.

Heavy pollution in northern China created a backlog of vessels waiting to be unloaded at ports, and the potential for a cyclone in Western Australia has been on the BDI’s radar, but the BDI has still slowly retreated. 

This is somewhat positive considering we are in the season where a rapid collapse in the BDI’s price is typical. The weather woes were only enough to limit the downside, and not prevent it.