Project Description
The Baltic Dry Index dropped nearly a thousand points in January from 2,300 to 1,300 points. The main reason for this was the coal export ban in Indonesia. Our data shows the coal market fell 10% compared to December.
Iron ore also performed badly falling 14% amid concerns from Chinese construction. There were however some star performance for the construction and fertiliser which was up 14% and 9% mom respectively. Overall dry cargo fell 8% in January. This is 3% below this time last year.
Looking at coal, Indonesia exported 11 million tonnes in January from 27 million tonnes the month before. Their ban last only a few weeks but seriously impeded volumes. Also Interesting is Russia volumes which fell as well from 15 million tonnes in December to 8 million tonnes in January. Grain was also hit hard in January with 49 million tonnes shipped, which is 6 million tonnes below last year 55 million. Most of this decline has come from the soybean markets where 6.9 million tonnes was shipped compared to 10.2 million tonnes from the year before. This was a weaker than expected US season.