"We risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance"
- Rubén Blades

"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it"
- Art Buchwald

"It's getting exciting now, two and one-half. Think of everything we've accomplished, man. Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium"
- Tyler Durden

"It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath, we shall hunt them down."
- Boondock Saints

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Baltic Dry Index

Here is the BDI - (Baltic Exchange Dry Index).  It's daily assessments from various selected charter brokers of the previous days "fixtures" (chartering contracts), for 3 sizes of dry bulk ships (listed below). Bulk, meaning the cargo is not in containers. Generally it's coal, ores or grains.  You can follow shipping traffic patterns and various vessel geographic densities here.

Capesize BCI (Baltic Cape Index) - Blue Line
  • Vessels which must transit via the Capes.  Either the Cape of Good Hope, which is at the tip of Africa, or Cape Horn, which is at the tip of South America. These ships are considered too big to fit through the canals. Some may be able to transit the Suez, depending on their draft (meaning, how deep of water they require), which varies depending on how much cargo they have onboard.
Panamax BPI (Baltic Panamax Index) - Orange Line
  • Vessels which can fit through the Panama Canal. 
Supramax BSI (Baltic Supramax Index) - Yellow Line
  • These vessels use to be called Handymax, but for some reason in 2005/2006 the Baltic Exchange changed the term to Supramax (I do not know why). These vessels are smaller than Panamax, but bigger than Handysize.



Large shipping has begun to pick up and just as it does Hapag-Lloyd, NYK, and OOCL (all Grand Alliance Members) have decided to increase the tonnage being sent through the Transatlantic Service (not to be confused with another Transatlantic Service) which connects Europe to the US' North Eastern Region.

From SeaNews:
In collaboration with Hamburg Süd and ZIM, Grand Alliance members Hapag-Lloyd, NYK and OOCL have decided to upgrade their tonnage deployed in the Transatlantic Service between Europe and North America East Coast. From March 2012 instead  of four 3,700 TEU vessels, four 5,400 TEU ships are then to come into operation. As hitherto, Hamburg Süd and ZIM will each provide one vessel and Grand Alliance two. The weekly fixed-day service continues to have the port rotation: Rotterdam – Hamburg – Le Havre – Southampton – New York – Norfolk – Charleston – Rotterdam