Summer is upon us, with all that that entails in terms of trying to track down people you need to contact, all of whom appear to have left their various countries in search of a suitable level of UV grilling. At this time of year, the press generally breaks out its good old stories, although we have yet to see the traditional August Titanic tale.
One such posed the question why, if the iceberg was so big, the Titanic didn't moor alongside?
With certain titanic convulsions in the Baltic Dry index in recent months, while the mood is upbeat, there is still a lot of uncertainty out there.
Much of the talk is about what the prospects are for commodities trades with China and India, which have had such a role to play in underpinning the dry cargo market. Will the Chinese market overheat? Have we heard this before? Yes we have.
Our chairman's attendance at a recent wedding at which only one tanker man was present, alongside a load of dry bulk people, seemed to indicate that contrary to the usual trend, tanker men were, for once, in a slightly happier mood, with the dry cargo contingent falling on their swords. A few wet cold ones soon sorted them out!
Perhaps our man had read the Platou report suggesting that the drop in VLCC rates might simply be due to the release of Iranian cruise from storage.
Then again the market may be weak because, well, everyone is on holiday. There certainly seems to be plenty of scrapping activity, particularly for tankers where the single hull phase out continues. The question remains what will happen with all the new tonnage coming into the market?
