17 OCTOBER 2021
Welcome to BLK Shipping, our regular update from the shipping market. In this issue, we’ll be covering:
- Wet Cargo
- Dry Cargo
- Containers
- Gas
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Wet Cargo
The increasing price of crude oil has been driving the tankers’ charter rates up, although the availability of VLCCs meant a general slowdown for this segment.
VLCC – Very Large Crude Carriers saw a decline over the past week, primarily due to the oversupply of tonnage in the market. Outlook: Stable
Suezmax – strong rally Sith over 1800% increase WoW for suezmaxes, with a very strong performance, especially in the Mediterranean. Outlook: Positive
Aframax – afra rates more gained ground, with a general strengthening across most routes. Outlook: Positive
Dirty Products – Apart from the usual busy market in the Med and Black Sea, demand remained weak in all other regions, causing rates to soften. Outlook: Stable.
Clean Products – Charter rates weakened across the board with some routes losing over 50% WoW. The MR market remained relatively oversupplied, and the lack of available cargoes did the rest to cause charter rates to slip by an average of 10% Outlook: Negative
MR – weakening demand did not support the MR rates, which, coupled with the oversupply of carrying capacity in the market, caused rates to fall across the board. Outlook: Negative
LR1 – demand for log-range tankers fell in the last few weeks and continues on a downward trend. Outlook: Negative
LR2 – LR2 tankers weakened approx. 20% WoW but, on average, remain still strong compared to this summer. Outlook: Stable
Handy – Handy earnings weakened too, returning below $3500/day and losing all the ground gained in September Outlook: Stable
Dirty Panamax – Rates softened on most routes, bringing Panamax rates down 22% compared to last month. Outlook: Negative
Dry Cargo
Strong performance for the bulkers on most routes and across all segments, with rates at their highest levels in over 10 years.
Capesize – Capes grew up to 30% in the last week, averaging nearly $73k/day and rates climbing sharply to unchartered heights. Outlook: Positive
Panamax – Still another good week for the panamaxes, although slightly in decline on the Atlantic and on the routes Indonesia to China. Outlook: Positive
Supramax – Supramaxes lost ground in recent days, after climbing steadily over the course of 2021. The second half of September saw relatively steady rates, settling on an average of $30k/day Outlook: Stable
Handysize – Handy market still performing very well. After a strong July-August rally, a slow-down in September now it settled on $36k+/day with short voyages routes fetching over $40k/day. Outlook: Stable
Container
Container rates finally found some market resistance, with Neo-panamaxes vessels finding difficult to push much above the $145k/day mark.
Backlogs in major ports are gravely disrupting supply chains, with queues of over 70 container vessels at Long Beach and other major ports in the US, Europe and China.
We are now seeing, as predicted, a decrease in smaller-batches shipments westbound from Asia to Europe, accompanied by a subsequent easing of the TEU rates which now came down on the high $8000s mark.
Outlook: Stable
Gas
Rates for Gas Carriers rallied, driven by the strong demand for gas worldwide and the surge in prices across Europe and North America.
Pressurized and semi-pressurized vessel rates remained constant, whilst the biggest winners appeared to be LNG carriers, with rates now nearing the $85k/day for 160000 m3 vessels.
Outlook: Positive
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