The panamax bulker market skyrocketed to a one-year high as the Atlantic basin saw plenty of shipping, particularly as a result of robust grain demand, analysts said.
The Baltic Exchange’s Panamax 5TC set of spot-rate averages across five key routes jumped 22.8% over the past week to $16,900 per day on Friday, marking its highest level since 27 October 2022.
Rates have been rising since 6 November, when they bottomed at just over $13,000 per day.
It was “a dramatic week for the panamax market, chiefly in the Atlantic with rates accelerating sharply”, Baltic Exchange analysts wrote on Friday in their weekly wrap-up of the dry bulk market.
The north of the arena appeared mostly mineral-centric, they said, noting stable demand to carry grain cargoes from the US Gulf Coast and the northern shores of South America.
“This was coupled with a highly firm market ex-US Gulf for the supramax and ultramax sectors, lending support to the remarkable moves seen in the market.”
The analysts said “quick Baltic round trips” were achieving $30,000 by the end of the week, while longer transatlantic trips were earning in the low $20,000-per-day region on an equivalent basis.
Rate increases were “less spectacular” in the Pacific basin, but it still experienced “solid levels” of demand for shipping iron ore and coal out of Australia and Indonesia.
“Multiple short periods up to one-year deals [were] concluded this week,” the analysts said.
“The one-year mark averaging out around the low-mid-$14,000s mark for 82,000-dwt types delivery to the Far East.”
Speed Logistics relet Aegean Shipping Dry Bulk’s 80,900-dwt Green K-Max (built 2019) to an undisclosed charterer at $35,000 per day for a voyage from Turkey’s Port of Icdas to the Far East by way of Russia’s Port of Ust Luga.
The ship was scheduled to be loaded on 14 and 15 November, according to the exchange.
