The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry commodities, dipped on Thursday, primarily due to falling activity in the capesize segment.

The main index, which factors in the average daily earnings of capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize dry bulk transport vessels, fell 25 points or 2.18 percent to 1,121 points.

The Baltic's capesize index slipped 76 points, or 5.32 percent, to 1,352 points.
Earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000 tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, have fallen about 77 percent so far this year.

Bids for spot iron ore cargoes were scarce on Thursday, reflecting limited appetite from steel producers in top consumer China, some of whom continued to cut prices amid weak demand.

Iron ore shipments account for around a third of seaborne volumes on the larger capesizes, and brokers said price developments remained a key factor for dry freight.

The Baltic's panamax index gained 12 points or 1.02 percent to 1,187 points on Thursday. Panamaxes usually transport 60,000 to 70,000 tonne cargoes of coal or grains.

Average daily earnings for handysize ships were down $66 to $10,066, while, those for supramax ships were down $55 to $13,527.

Growing ship supply has been outpacing commodity demand for quite sometime now and is widely expected to cap dry bulk freight rate gains in the coming months.

The overall index, which gauges the cost of shipping commodities such as iron ore, cement, grain, coal and fertiliser has fallen about 36 percent this year.

Source: Reuters