Dry bulk ship owners are enjoying the latest rally of the market, especially in the larger ship types. Despite the recent pause in the rates' rally, shipbrokers appear to be optimistic that the rebound has more "legs", as a result of China's rise of iron ore and coal imports. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that the Dry Bulk market continues to show a strong face amidst the favorable tail winds being seen, which have helped the Baltic Dry Index inch above the psychological barrier of 1,500 points. The last time the Index was above this level was on the 25th of March 2014, which is around 3 ½ years ago. At the same time the market seems to be driven more so by the larger size segments (i.e. Capesize and Panamax vessels) this time around while in comparison to the earnings the rest of the sizes were seeing back then, they are currently trending at around 10% lower. This may well change as there is always a lag to be had in the Supramax and Handysize markets, which means that the earnings for these two sizes may well "catch up" in due course.

Nevertheless, according to Allied's George Lazaridis, Head of Market Research & Asset Valuations, "the market has been primarily driven by the increased activity that has been noted in the iron ore and coal commodities over the past couple of months. The drive of higher grade iron ore and coal pushed most Chinese steel mills to seek bigger volumes of imports from Australia and Brazil, helping not only ramp up total volumes of imports of these two vital commodities but also help pile on extra tonne-miles in demand thanks to the long distances".

He added that "the rise in rates hasn't been so smooth however, with the overall momentum now looking to have slowed down somewhat compared to what we were seeing two weeks ago or even a month ago. Every inch gained in index points from here forth seems to be made with considerable pressure from owners, while at the same time there is growing fear that Beijing's mandate for a slash in steel production during the winter months (October to March) may cause a disruption to the recent rally and could well push for a cool down in the market come early October".

Lazaridis says that "at the same time though it seems as though the drive for higher grade imports may intensify further during these coming months. Steel mills are likely to seek out higher grade imports so as to improve their overall operational efficiency by managing higher production levels of steel for each tonne of iron ore and coal they utilize while also reducing as such their overall emissions. This has been something clearly reflected in the price of different grades of iron ore with the gap between higher iron content ore prices having increased considerably during the past 2-3 months. This is only one side of the dry bulk market which mainly effects the performance of Capesize vessels".

Allied's analyst concluded that "the rest of the size segments heavily rely on the rest of the major dry bulk commodities, which during the same time frame haven’t shown an equal boost in activity. There has been some increased activity being observed in the grain trade, something that will likely continue, being that we are still within a time frame in the year that tends to be one of the seasonal peaks for this trade. At the same time we have already started to see stronger economic activity figures coming out of most of the important trading economies, something that will surely help further boost demand figures for the minor bulk trades as well, while also supporting the current trends being seen in the iron ore, coal and grain trades. In any case and no matter what the high point will be during the final quarter of the year, the focus should be placed on what market prospects will be available for next couple of years. Given the state of the fleet and orderbook and under the assumption that we are able to stay on a similar if not improved course in the dry bulk trade, the current highs in the freight market will surely be surpassed and by a considerable margin in the next year or so”, Lazaridis concluded.