Baltic Dry Index Pushes Up With Rising Capesize and Smaller Vessel Rates

March 23(Reuters) – The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, continued to rise on Monday, supported by positive capesize and smaller vessel rates.

The index, which factors in the average daily earnings of capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize dry bulk transport vessels, was up three points, or 0.51 percent, at 594 points.

The capesize index rose 12 points, or 2.84 percent, to 435 points.

Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, rose $33 to $4,207.

The panamax index remained flat at 617 points.

Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry 60,000 to 70,000-tonne cargoes of coal or grains, slipped by a dollar to $4,940.

“Dry bulk shipping demand growth should continue to outpace dry bulk shipping supply growth over the next 12 months, resulting in improving market conditions through at least 2015,” Jefferies analyst Douglas Mavrinac said in a note on Monday.

The indexes for relatively smaller vessels — handysize and supramax were up two points at 386 points and five points at 640 points respectively. (Reporting by Anupam Chatterjee in Bengaluru, editing by David Evans)