Thursday 6 September 2012

Baltic index down on less panamax activity

Wed Sep 5, 2012
Sept 5 (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry commodities, fell on Wednesday on limited activity in the panamax segment.

The overall index, which reflects daily freight market prices for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize dry bulk transport vessels, fell 1.3 percent to 684 points.

The panamax index fell 5.69 percent to 647 points, with average daily earnings down $311 at $5,141. Panamaxes typically transport 60,000-70,000 tonne cargoes of coal or grains.

Despite a rise in the volume of fresh inquiries emerging in the market, the panamax segment was more negative, Shipbroker Intermodal said in a note.

"There was still ample of open vessels in both basins and owners seemed to be in a hurry to snatch up any available stem they could," Intermodal said.

The Pacific seemed to be the weaker out of the two basins, it added.

The Baltic's capesize index was up 0.17 percent at 1,188 points.

Average daily earnings for capesizes, which usually transport 150,000 tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were up $32 at $3,497.

Average daily earnings for handysize ships were down $14 at $6,623, while that of supramax ships were down $41 at $8,834.

(Reporting by NR Sethuraman in Bangalore, editing by William Hardy)

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