Dry bulk

Dry bulk cargo is unpackaged dry commodity cargo carried loose in a ship’s holds. The major bulks — iron ore, coal, and grain — account for the bulk of the trade, with minor bulks including bauxite, alumina, fertilizers, steel products, forest products, and cement.

The ships are bulk carriers, described by their deadweight: Handysize and Handymax/Supramax vessels (often fitted with their own cranes, “geared”, for ports without shore equipment), Panamax/Kamsarmax, and gearless Capesize ships of 150,000+ DWT built around the iron ore and coal trades from Brazil and Australia to Asia.

The dry bulk market is the closest thing shipping has to perfect competition: thousands of owners, standardized ships, and freely negotiated voyage and time charters, with rates summarized daily by the Baltic Exchange’s indices (the Baltic Dry Index being the famous headline number). Rates are notoriously volatile, driven by Chinese industrial demand, grain seasons, port congestion, and the pace of newbuilding deliveries.