Even with the Chinese New Years being concluded, a downward pressure remains on eastbound tonnage where rates kept dropping this past week. Wafr followed the softening trend in AG and is currently trading at higher 50´s level.
1. WAF-AC: This week showed that there's always a little more room left to slip when you think the market has bottomed out. A balance of tonnage and inquirey should help maintain the leves going into next week.
2. Black Sea - Med: Market continued to drop in the Med where Turkish Strait delays are now down to a bare minimum of two days N/S bound. Uncertainty in Novorossiysk has als led to a lack of cargoes placing additional pressure on rates.
1 NSEA-UKC - Continued to soften this week with a growing tonnage list
2 Baltic - UKC ice - Ice is starting to develop and should be picking up end Feb / early March. As in Nsea, tonnage list remains solid and market dropped a coupld of points this week.
3 Baltic - UKC no ice - N/A
4 Cross Med - With tonnage list weighing out enquiry, rates remain at current low levels.
5 Far East - Far east market remain faily lacklustre with an oversupply of tonnages.
1. CARIBS - This week has seen more cargo activity and less available tonnage in the area. Despite this rates have only increased slowly yet steadily to current levels. Rise in bunker prices erroded any extra income the additional +5 points would have provided.
2. FAR EAST- Charterers are back after the holidays in asia, rates are showing some positive upside
1. Rotterdam - New York - After a couple of very busy days on the continent with cargoes moving both TA and to WAF, market has rebounded and is now trading at ws160 which is 20 ws points above last Friday and it remains firm with rumors of ws165 on subs at the time of writing.
2. Caribs - With excess tonnage available and little cargo activity in the area freight rates have remained soft throughout this week falling slightly from last week´s levels. Yet, rates are keeping up as activity in other areas keep being busy. Bunker prices have remain high.
3. Houston - A.R.A. - (only the back haul leg) The week started out with low numbers. Freight rates jumped to healthier levels as cargo activity in the area increased mid week soaking up more tonnage from the market.