The Baltic Dry Index, generally considered to be a benchmark for the health of the global shipping industry, has reached all-time lows in 2016. To put this into perspective, in February this year, the Index was down 98% from its peak in the 2008 shipping boom. During the shipping boom, Capesize vessels were earning up to USD200,000 per day. Reuters has recently reported that Capesize vessel earnings are currently around US$3000 per day for the Australia-China route and USD 5000 per day for the Brazil-China route. This is significantly below estimated average operating and financing costs of US$7000 per day required by shipowners to break even. Industry experts do not anticipate these numbers improving significantly over the coming years.
