Commodities giant Louis Dreyfus has fixed a capesize owned by Greece’s Alcyon on a four- to seven-month timecharter that shows short-term period rates are waning again in the sector.
Nightwing (170,000 dwt, built 2006) was fixed at a daily rate of $8,000 and will deliver in Liuheng, China between August 4-7, according to Baltic Exchange data.
The rate is a step down from the last reported six-month period fixture on July 15, when SwissMarine took Dong-A Tanker’s cape Dong-A Eos (179,329 dwt, built 2009) for four to seven months at $9,000 daily.
At the end of June, Louis Dreyfus fixed Eastern Pacific’s cape Mount Bolivar (181,070 dwt, built 2016) at $9,250 daily for three to six months.
In the spot market, today’s Baltic Dry Index fell 13 points, dipping below the 700-level once again to be assessed at 696 points. Declines were shown by the Baltic indices for all dry vessel types except handysizes.
The capesize market has shown the most pronounced contraction, however, and today rates fell again across all the Baltic’s benchmark cape routes.
The weighted timecharter average rate (TCA) of the Baltic’s five major capesize routes was assessed at $6,059 per day, a $261 decrease from Monday’s level – but still a way behind short-term period rates.
The capesize TCA rate has fallen every consecutive trading day since July 15, when it reached a near-two-month peak of $7,548 per day.
