Fri Jun 29, 2012
June 29 (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry commodities, rose on Friday, buoyed by higher panamax and capesize vessel rates.
The main index, which factors in the average daily earnings of capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize dry bulk transport vessels, rose 10 points or 1.01 percent to 1,004 points.
The Baltic's panamax index gained 16 points or 1.65 percent to 984 points on Friday. Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually transport 60,000 to 70,000 tonne cargoes of coal or grains, rose to $7,835.
The Baltic's capesize index climbed 0.51 percent to 1,190 points.
"Steady enquiry in the Atlantic basin created some optimism in the market, however rates remain unchanged despite this," ship broker Braemar Seascope Ltd said in its weekly report.
However, earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000 tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, have fallen about 85.5 percent this year.
"Mining exports worldwide are generally up significantly for Q2 year-on-year and yet rates languish at these current levels. With a large number of Capes still to be delivered this year, many are beginning to question any form of Q4 rally at all," Braemar Seascope said.
Growing ship supply has been outpacing commodity demand for quite sometime now and is widely expected to cap dry bulk freight rate gains in the coming months.
The overall index, which gauges the cost of shipping commodities such as iron ore, cement, grain, coal and fertiliser has fallen about 42 percent this year.
(Reporting by Koustav Samanta in Bangalore; Editing by Alison Birrane)
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