Capesize freight rates continued to rise on better physical market and bullish market sentiment for both basins.
The Capesize 5 time charter average then rose by $344 day-on-day to $15,138 on Monday, due to active start of shipping activities for the week.
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) followed the rally and moved higher with gains of 1.31% or 24 points to 1,853 readings.
Improving shipping demand on key routes
The Pacific market continued to see robust iron ore demand on the key western Australia to Qingdao route, especially for late-March loading window.
There were also coal shipping demands from eastern Australia and Indonesia, which resulted more shipowners to be interested in the Pacific trip as compared to other key routes like moving cargoes out of Brazil.
In comparison, the Atlantic market was more muted, however there was some reduction in the ballaster list heading toward Brazil, as some vessels had changed their courses and headed toward West Africa and South Africa instead.
Bunker prices rise despite cooldown in crude oil rally
Bunker prices remained high on the strength of crude oil prices, as the price of VLSFO surged up further by $13/mt to $535/mt in the port of Singapore.
Despite the high bunker prices, the crude oil prices started to scale down as the drone attacks had reportedly caused no casualties or loss of property on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.
Thus, the Brent crude oil prices then slipped downward under $70 per barrel, but some trade participants remained bullish on the oil demand, citing good progress of vaccination and expect oil demand surge from China in near term.