Drewry has launched the Multipurpose Time Charter Index, which tracks one-year period charter rates across a basket of vessel types and sizes and forecasts the market movement over the coming month. The vessel types include breakbulk and project cargo ships.

The weighted index shows the continued rise in rates from the low point seen in the summer, with movement to an average USD 5,965 per day in October from USD 5,870 in September. Going forward we expect that trend to continue into November as breakbulk demand levels remain firm and average rates across the main sectors rise to USD 6,100 per day.

Over October 2020, rates for the larger project carriers recorded an improvement over September of some 1% to average $6,700 per day. However, recovery has been hampered by weak oil & gas demand. For the smaller, less heavy-lift capable vessels in the fleet, which predominantly trade short-sea, there was also a clear improvement buoyed by demand for breakbulk cargo. Rates here averaged around $5,400 per day and were up almost 2% on the previous month.