Dry Bulk Capesizes normally enjoy the December festive season. Not this year where rates have collapsed to levels barely above operating expenses, a damp squib ending to what has otherwise been a profitable 2024. “The anticipated strong finish to the year now feels like a distant memory,” stated Breakwave Advisors, going on to predict that any meaningful cape recovery before year-end appears now unlikely, with both basins oversupplied in tonnage and demand remaining steady. Cape rates are now below $13,000 a day, their lowest levels since September last year. Braemar said the reversal in fortunes for capes seen lately served as an illustration of how rapidly fortunes can turn in the shipping market. “A combination of misplaced faith and a seismic shift in the governing supply/demand model has laid the groundwork for an extremely pronounced retracement in the rates,” Braemar stated, warning: “The bleed out in value has yet to stem.” Looking ahead, expectations for 2025 have “tempered significantly”, Breakwave said in a new report, noting how capesize futures are now comfortably below $18,000. Tankers Last week OPEC+ rolled over production cuts for another three months, acknowledging that the current fundamentals do not allow for additional OPEC+ production. In fact, with the fundamentals suggesting a well-supplied market for 2025, the group further slowed the pace of production increases. The most recent round of cuts of 2.2m barrels per day, which were originally implemented in November 2023 will now stay in place until at least April 2025, with production gradually phased back in by September 2026. An additional cut made in April 2023 of 1.65m barrels per day will be extended until the end of 2026, whilst the 3.7m barrels per day cut put in place in October 2022 was not specifically mentioned and is likely to remain in place indefinitely, or until the current policy changes. “Whilst expected increases in non-OPEC supply next year suggest there will be little improvement in the outlook for OPEC+ oil production, geopolitical developments could quickly change the picture. With stricter sanctions on OPEC member Iran expected next year, any significant decline in Iranian supplies could open the window for the rest of the group to boost output,” Gibson stated, suggesting the OPEC+ news will see crude tanker demand growth driven by expanding production in the Atlantic basin, which typically generates more tonne miles than production from the Middle East. “Following the November US elections, we continue to expect the United States to lead non-OPEC+ supply growth of 1.5 mb/d in both 2024 and 2025, along with higher output from Canada, Guyana and Argentina. Plagued by a number of unscheduled outages and operational underperformance this year, Brazil is expected to be a major source of growth next year. Total growth from the five American producers will more than cover expected demand growth in 2024 and 2025,” Xclusiv Shipbrokers noted. Containers In any period outside of the 2020s, container fleet growth of 10% in a single year would spell disaster for liner fortunes, a guaranteed one-way voyage into the red. Not so this year, however, and liner executives have the Houthi militia to thank for the many billions of dollars of profits they are raking in at the moment. Putting perspective on how the Red Sea shipping crisis has buoyed earnings, analysts at Sea-Intelligence have shown how the sector would have fared this year with and without the ins