Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Commodity Shipping Measure Falls to 28-Year Low on China Demand
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/shipping-gauge-falls-to-28-year-low-as-china-demand-growth-slowsAs boring as this sounds, combined with the loss of US oil rigs this past quarter, this is pretty important.
The Baltic Dry Index plunged 5.1 percent to 632 points, the lowest since Aug. 22, 1986, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London on Thursday. Freight rates for all the vessel types within the measure declined.
China, the world’s biggest buyer of of coal and iron ore, will increase imports of the two commodities by 6 percent this year, down from a growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2014, according to estimates from Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. The nation’s economic expansion this year will be the slowest since 1990, the average of 67 economists’ forecasts compiled by Bloomberg shows.
...
Total trade in dry-bulk commodities, which also include cargoes such as grains, steel, sugar and scrap metal, will expand about 4 percent to 4.67 billion metric tons this year, about the same as last year’s increase, Clarkson data show. The capacity of the fleet of vessels able to haul the commodities will increase 5.1 percent, it anticipates.
“The demand from China is weak,” Charles Rupinski, senior analyst at Global Hunter Securities LLC, said by phone from New York on Thursday. “There’s been a large number of new build deliveries and people had been expecting a recovery.”
China, the world’s biggest buyer of of coal and iron ore, will increase imports of the two commodities by 6 percent this year, down from a growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2014, according to estimates from Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. The nation’s economic expansion this year will be the slowest since 1990, the average of 67 economists’ forecasts compiled by Bloomberg shows.
...
Total trade in dry-bulk commodities, which also include cargoes such as grains, steel, sugar and scrap metal, will expand about 4 percent to 4.67 billion metric tons this year, about the same as last year’s increase, Clarkson data show. The capacity of the fleet of vessels able to haul the commodities will increase 5.1 percent, it anticipates.
“The demand from China is weak,” Charles Rupinski, senior analyst at Global Hunter Securities LLC, said by phone from New York on Thursday. “There’s been a large number of new build deliveries and people had been expecting a recovery.”
Basically, after the financial crisis, when prices were low, a lot of companies bought or fixed up cargo ships, and this glut is driving the price of freight shipping down.