Despite the continuation of the "grain agreement", the daily rental rates for ships from the Black Sea have fallen by almost 2 times over the past two weeks. This fact was noted by Director of BPG Shipping Gennady Ivanov in an interview with APK-Inform.
According to him, this situation is due to the fact that by the time the agreement was extended, more than 100-150 ships had accumulated in Istanbul due to the sabotage of the Russian inspectors waiting for the inspection. In addition, it was entirely incomprehensible for traders, for whom the predictability factor is vital, whether the “grain†corridor would be extended or not.
“Russia, as we see, continues to sabotage the procedures of the Joint Focal Point, so the number of commissions/inspections does not increase. For example, today, we see that some charterers require shipowners to include up to 20 days of waiting in Istanbul at the shipowner's expense in the freight rate. Someone requests freight at the rate of 10 days of waiting. Therefore, for a relative assessment of freight rates with Ukraine, it is important to consider the number of waiting days included,†Gennady Ivanov noted.
Also, according to the expert, a slight increase in freight is expected in January, although at the moment, the Black Sea is one of the most depressed areas for charter, and a number of vessels are in spot.
In the future, freight will be affected by an increase in sales and weather conditions, which ship owners will take into account and include in its cost.
“In general, we all understand the absurdity of the presence of inspections in Istanbul as a tool of the Russian Federation to increase the cost of Ukrainian grain and, accordingly, increase the competitiveness of Russian. But I want to believe that it will still be possible to achieve the abolition of at least an absolutely illogical inspection of already loaded ships, which will drastically reduce the total time of inspections,†Gennady Ivanov added.
