By Don Frost October '97 September's multiple topics were well received, so let's look at a few more. The Market Offsetting the continued lethargy in dry cargo at the beginning of the month is a comfortably firm tanker market with promise of still better times for the ship owners. For now, PRC has an exportable surplus of corn, which is being sold to South Korea. Its soya bean purchase contracts, while not robust, do run to the end of the year.
Wheat is also in balance for now.
However, the commodity pe ople are closely watching the scene as El Ni o's effects increase and spread. Even if China escapes its effects, watch Indonesia and any other nation that depends on Australia as a grain supply source. The energy demands of a recently thriving and still steadily growing Pacific Rim continue to increase in the short term. In the longer term, increases in energy demand in the forms of oil, coal and natural gas are likely to skyrocket. The distances bet ween supply and consumers are shorter in this market than between the oil rich Middle East and the West, which would suggest fewer and smaller ships than if this growth was centered in the Western Hemisphere.