Very little in the way of trend or market movement was sensed at the start of the week for Capesize rates with traders playing hard to get on both sides of the fence. Given the utter lack of tangible activity, rate assessments wasted no time in slipping with nearly all rates trending either sideways or down. Perhaps most decreased were the front haul freights from the UKC, losing US$ 200 day-on-day to US$ 33,500. Panamaxes were arguably the busiest bulker sector at the start of the week, thanks in no small part to overflow from last week’s watershed activity, but even so there was little for the market to hang its hat on looking ahead. Trans-Atlantic RVs have become a victim of the current indecisiveness, dropping more than US$ 300 on average rates to close in the US$ 11-11,500 daily range on shipments of 72-76,000 dwt from the Continent. The Indonesia rounds have been hovering in the US$ 13-14,000 daily range. A group of countries—Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan—will pick up the slack in lost coal demand in the next few years, says Drewry, with Malaysia and Thailand increasingly dependent on imports for coal usage. Philippines and Vietnam are likely to see slow growth in domestic coal output, meaning increased imports in the near term. As such, Southeast Asia will continue to draw the focus of Pacific coal transport growth away from China.
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