On the fourth week of 2018(Jan.22 to 26), the International Grain Future Freight (IGF) reported the Panamax forward freight rate of U.S. Gulf-Tianjin route (soybean) from March to May 2018, the trend is shown as figure below.

The progress of Brazilian soybean went slowly, top soybean production Mato Grosso soybean harvest completed 3.29%, while it was 11.49% in the same period of last year, and five-year average number is 7.17%. As the weather of Argentine soybean production areas kept heat and dry, the market expected that Argentina soybean farmers may face loss of yield.

For shipping market, forward freight steadily went higher this week. On Jan. 22 (Monday) and Jan. 24 (Wednesday), forward freight rose slightly twice, both increasing 0.19% on a day-to-day basis. On Jan. 26 (Friday), forward freight rose again and eventually closed at US$ 33.31/ ton, up 0.76% compared with Jan.19 (the last release day of Week 3).