Main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange shoots up to 834 points

UNITED KINGDOM October 31 2016 3:20 PM

LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities shot up to 834 points on Friday mainly due to strong cape rate.

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 36 points to 834 points on Friday.

Last year around this time, the BDI was trading around 759 points, and it fell to an all-time low of 290 points in February 2016 amid major concerns over demand for raw materials from China. 

While China’s economy has since improved on government-sponsored infrastructure spending programs, the country has been stockpiling raw materials for most of 2016 and this could mean demand will be weak in the winter of 2016.