China Merchants Energy Shipping has reportedly fixed one of its capesize bulk carriers on a five- to eight-month timecharter while rates in the spot market continue to tick upwards.
Pacific Success was reported fixed to Pacbulk at a rate of $10,000 daily, according to Baltic Exchange data. The cape was delivered to the charterer on Monday at Bayuquan, China.
The deal is the latest in a series of short-term capesize period fixtures being seen as spot rates grow.
The daily rate, however, is $500 below what capes owned by Ceres Shipping and an Anangel Maritime achieved when fixed last week.
Meanwhile in the spot market, the Baltic Dry Index today rose 29 points from Monday to reach 865, showing chartering activity is making a comeback after taking a breather last week.
Capesizes are still performing well, with big increases in rates shown on almost all the Baltic’s benchmark routes.
The Baltic’s Western Australia to Qingdao route (C5) was the only benchmark on which rates fell, but this is likely just an adjustment after such a huge advances were made in Monday’s assessment.
Today, C5 was assessed $0.105 lower at $6.100 per tonne, which is still the highest level seen for the route since mid-August last year. Some five new fixtures for ore were reported on the route today, mostly for Rio Tinto.
Capesize chartering activity has also picked up in the Atlantic basin today. An additional $2,425 was added to the timecharter equivalent rate (TCE) for the Baltic’s Gibraltar/Hamburg transatlantic round voyage (C8_14), which was today assessed at $12,650 daily.
Cargill reportedly fixed Angelicoussis’ Anangel Hope (179,445 dwt, built 2015)Â at around $13,800 daily for a prompt trip from Rotterdam via Puerto Bolivar, redelivering at Skaw-Passero.
Rates on the C8_14 route are still being outstripped by round-trips in the Pacific, however. The China-Japan transpacific round-voyage benchmark (C10_14) was assessed today at $14,083 daily, up $187 from Monday.
