It was another bullish day for the Capesize market, with the physical market making solid gains to push up the freight rates.
The Capesize 5 time charter average then rose by $1,636 day-on-day to $20,687 on Tuesday, with talk of C5 heading to $9.00 and the C3 rumoured to surge toward the $18.90.
Following the bullish Capesize market, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) continued to hike up by 5.63% day-on-day to 1,463 readings on Tuesday.
Flurry of fixtures confirm in the Pacific and Atlantic
The decent shipping demand in the Pacific had resulted several fixtures with Rio Tinto heard to fix a few vessels for the key west Australia to Qingdao route for mid-August laycan.
According to Platts, the indicative freight heard on the west coast Australia to Qingdao route was in the $8.50-$9.20/wmt range.
Likewise in the Atlantic market, Brazilian miner, CSN was heard to fix four vessels for the Itaguai to Qingdao route for second-half August laycan at around mid- to high-$18s/wmt.
Thus, the freight indicated on the Brazil to China route for early September laycan was in the $18.50-$19/wmt range.
Despite the bullish outlook, some trade participants were concerned over the suspension of China’s Zhoushan port operations due to Typhoon Hagupit.
Bunker prices slide on renewed lockdown concerns
VLSFO prices continued to slip further downward on softening demand and dropped by $2.50/mt to $333/mt at the port of Singapore.
Market participants were concerned about the impact of the second wave of coronavirus spread that urged countries and states like the Philippines and Melbourne to renew lockdown measures.
In the meantime, Hong Kong also imposed stricter measures for vessels making bunker-only calls to its port, as the vessel crews were subjected to quarantined for 14 days for such operations.
As such, Hong Kong is estimated to lose around 10% of its bunkering demand to other regional ports like Zhoushan for bunker-only calls.