Bulk freight rates for major Asian routes jumped 14 percent on Tuesday, reversing a two-week slide, on chronic congestion's at Australia's Newcastle port caused by bad weather.
Period charter rates for modern panamax tonnages booked on trans-Pacific voyages were valued at $47,000, up $6,000 from physical spot tonnage offers seen last week. July Freight Forward Agreements (FFAs) for panamax vessels plying the trans-Pacific route (P3A_03) were valued at $49,000-$51,000.
"You should continue to see prices stay nice and firm through the next four to six weeks at least, because that is how long they will take to clear the mess over there, and that's conservatively speaking," a Singapore-based shipbroker said.
Exports at the port slipped about 5 percent from a week earlier to 907,469 tonnes for the week ended June 25, official port data showed. Waiting time at the port remained at about 27 days, port officials said, but shipbrokers and owners reckoned times were longer.
"The waiting time now after these storms is well over 30 days. I won't be surprised if we see vessels waiting there in excess of 35 days," a shipbroker said. Vessel queues increased to 80 ships from the previous week's 71, port data showed. A total of 75 ships were in anchorage waiting to load, while there were five vessels at port ready to start loading operations.
Earlier Tuesday, miner Xstrata said it had lifted its force majeure on coal shipments from Newcastle. They joined other miners, including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc unit Coal and Allied Industries Ltd, in the Hunter Valley region who lifted their force majeure after assessing the damage from wild weather. The latter has flooded mines, cut railway lines to the port and disrupted coal loading.
Rates were expected to continue to get a boost, with Chinese coal producers expressing a reluctance at plugging the supply lost due to the export disruptions at Newcastle.
"Asian buyers are going to have to go down to Australia. They don't really have much of a choice, so this isn't going to get better anytime soon," a shipbroker said. Asian electricity producers are key buyers of coal from the port.
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