Two spot trades stalled in the last week of September, and in both the obstacle was freight. Guinean bauxite sellers raised their October term offers into China alongside rising freight while spot cargoes struggled to trade, and sales of Venezuelan oil for October loading stalled after the cost of shipping it to the US Gulf more than doubled from the end of August. In iron ore, Chinese mills under margin pressure are leaning towards Australian supply on the shorter voyage.
Where the freight was already inside the terms of sale, or the buyer could absorb it, cargo kept moving through the fortnight. Where it had to be found in a spot negotiation, the cargo waited for a price. The rest of the cost arrived as time: in a queue of ships off Russia’s Baltic ports, in barges on a low Rhine and in bunker waits at Zhoushan. Each of those waits lands on whichever party the charter names.
Wet Bulk
Atlantic suezmaxes carried the sharpest move in crude freight. TD27 (Guyana to UK Continent) reached WS743.89 on Thursday 1 October, from just under WS437 a week earlier, while the Gulf VLCC benchmarks eased. The demand under that move is structural. On BIMCO’s figures, Caribbean Basin crude exports are up 45% this year, and Guyana’s growth has moved on suezmaxes. VLCCs discharging in Asia also find better-paid ballasts to West Africa, Brazil or the Gulf than the long trip back to the US Gulf, which leaves the mid-size ships to lift much of the Atlantic’s crude.
Venezuela sits at the other end of the same market. Its haul to the US Gulf is short, yet on Signal Maritime’s figures an aframax from Jose now costs about $5 a barrel, against $1.90 at the start of the year. Buyers have been seeking discounts deep enough to cover that, at terminals where tanker queues are the longest since January, and October sales stalled while the two sides looked for a price.
Gulf crude has its volume back at a far higher cost of delivery. Kpler’s tracking put exports outside Iran at their pre-war average in September, but most of August’s Hormuz crossings changed tankers off Fujairah or Sohar, and Vortexa puts a single transfer from a fully laden VLCC at five or six days. Poten has VLCC freight to the Far East at almost $33 a barrel, against $1.73 in early January, and expects refiners to turn to nearer grades wherever the freight saving covers the lower yield. Yanbu, whose stoppage led our last edition, had all seven berths full again by 27 September.
The tightness then reached diesel. President Donald Trump said in late September that he had encouraged his advisers to support a ban on US diesel exports, and on BRS Shipbrokers’ estimate a full US diesel export ban could strand about four MR2 cargoes a day. The G7 and its partners agreed on 2 October to release oil stocks and committed to avoiding export bans, while Russia extended its own ban on most diesel exports through October. Crude’s strength is also drawing clean ships into dirty trades, which leaves less coated tonnage in reserve if diesel tightens into the winter.
Charterer Lens
- Regular lifters of Guyanese crude have the cargo base to test suezmax period cover, with a tenor matched to a lifting programme the International Energy Agency expects to keep growing into 2027.
- On Gulf crude bought for transfer, the national oil company sets the sale terms, so the buyer’s control sits in the receiving ship’s charter. Five or six days alongside a laden VLCC is time the laytime terms should already price.
- November diesel stems from the US Gulf still carry export-policy risk. The protection sits in the sale contract’s export-prohibition clause, backed by a cancellation right in the charter party.
Dry Bulk
Capesize moved against our last reading, which had Pacific rates finding a floor. Tonnage built in the East instead, the Brazilian loading window rolled into the second half of October, and the Baltic’s BCI 182 5TC came off the top, from $52,315 a day at the end of the week to 18 September to $45,731 on Friday 2 October.
The freight gap between the two main ore routes is where this reaches the cargo. A tonne of Brazilian ore now costs well over twice as much to carry to Qingdao as an Australian one, and with few Chinese blast-furnace mills profitable in mid-September, that gap feeds directly into what mills buy. Intermodal sees them leaning towards Australian ore, and the August flow data already lean the same way, with Brazil’s exports down and Australia’s up while Guinea shipped a monthly record.
The panamax market has a different support. US dry bulk shipments to China more than doubled in the first three quarters, from a 2025 base that tariffs had cut, with grain leading and panamaxes carrying most of the volume. That long haul has a policy behind it: China has committed to US coal purchases for 2027 and 2028, and Sinograin has booked US Gulf soybean cargoes for December to February.
Panama eased at the end of September, but the relief went to the larger ships. The canal raised the Neopanamax draft and added a Neopanamax transit from 15 October, while the Panamax locks stays at their reduced schedule and the water deficit in the watershed continues. Clarksons expects the strongest El Niño on record to compound the canal’s disruption, with a peak likely early next year, which falls across the US Gulf’s soybean programme.
Charterer Lens
- Post-holiday port drawdowns in China are the signal for November ore cover. Firm Brazilian stems can be fixed on the softer board, with optional cargoes held until the drawdowns show whether mills are buying again.
- Ore buyers weighing Brazilian against Australian supply for the first quarter can price the choice on the C3 and C5 forwards, since freight is now a large part of the grade decision.
- US Gulf soybean cargoes for December to February load inside Clarksons’ expected El Niño peak. A Cape of Good Hope estimate belongs alongside the canal route, since the latest easing went to Neopanamax tonnage.
Macro and Regulatory
Outside the Gulf, the fortnight’s cost arrived as waiting, and the charter decides who carries it. The vessel backlog off Russia’s Baltic ports built to about 150 ships by 30 September, with a median wait at Ust-Luga of about four and a half days, which the Maritime Executive’s sources link to Black Sea cargo diverted north. A waiting-for-berth provision puts those days on the charterer’s laytime, and a strict berth charter leaves them with the owner. For the tankers in that queue, the US sanctions review of covered persons and vessels falls due around 18 October.
The Rhine at Kaub fell in the last week of September to its lowest since records began in 1880, Bloomberg reported, and diesel barge freight from Rotterdam more than doubled over the month. The receiver pays first, in barge freight and storage time at the seaport. The ocean ship waits only once tanks and stockyards fill and discharge stops.
At Zhoushan, China’s top bunkering hub, waits for fuel stretched to one to two weeks in late September, against a day or two normally, as Chinese refiners shifted yield towards gasoline and diesel and crude imports stayed constrained. Under most time charters that wait runs on the charterer’s hire, since the charterer buys the bunkers.
The one cost a recap can settle in advance is the US port fee. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on 23 September that the US-China truce runs to 10 January 2027, which the trade press has read as covering the port-fee suspension, but the Section 301 suspension itself lapses on 9 November unless the US Trade Representative publishes a new Federal Register notice. Under the USTR’s April 2025 notice, Chinese-built ships run by other operators are exempt when they arrive empty or in ballast, as bulkers loading US grain and coal usually do; ships owned or operated by Chinese companies carry no such exemption in that notice.
Charterer Lens
- Grain cover priced on Russia’s Black Sea and Azov ports staying idle carries reversal risk, since Reuters’ analysis has most of that terminal capacity able to restart if attacks stop. Shorter cover, or an origin option in the purchase contract, limits the exposure.
- Recaps for US calls after 9 November can record build yard, owner, operator and arrival condition, which decide whether the call is chargeable, and name the party paying any fee.
- Receivers inland from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp can track tank and stockyard space against barge capacity at Kaub, and settle in the supply contract whether low-water barge freight passes through.
Settling Freight in Next Year's Term Contracts
Across crude, ore and grain, most of the fortnight’s higher freight was dealt with before a ship was fixed. Bauxite sellers lifted their term offers, refiners began weighing nearer grades against the cost of the long haul, and Chinese mills leaned towards the shorter ore voyage. Where neither buyer nor seller would take the extra cost, the cargo stayed unsold, and where the route itself was congested, the cost surfaced later as time in the laytime account.
That matters now because the fourth quarter is when much of next year’s term business is negotiated. A contract that leaves freight to be settled cargo by cargo risks the same standoff that stalled spot sales this autumn. Agreeing in advance how freight moves the price, against a published Baltic route that trades as a forward and within an agreed band, gives both parties a known exposure they can hedge. The coming dates are worth carrying into that negotiation: the extra Panama transit from 15 October, the US sanctions review around 18 October, the scheduled end of Russia’s diesel export ban at the end of October, and the US port-fee deadline on 9 November.
Until next week,
The Voyager Portal Team