Capesizes are in for a good year in 2014, according to Arrow Shipbroking managing director of research, James Leake. “In the capesize sector there is the opportunity of something big, something that breaks the trend of the last few years. We see the expansion of the capesize fleet over the next 18 months or so as comparatively low, and there are a lot of opportunities for expansion in those trades,” Leake told delegates at the Marine Money conference in London this morning.

"The cape fleet, we predict, will grow about 5% through the next two years,” Leake stated, adding that the figure is the lowest growth since well before the economic downturn.

“Nothing much can be done about the next two years - if we’re talking about when can we get the next available berth slot, you might be lucky to find a late 2015 order, but those are few and far between and probably at yards where you don’t really want to build a ship.”

For the demand side, Leake showed a trend of increasing iron ore exports from the big four miners and China’s restocking imports historically following the available supply of ore. Up until a cyclone hit Australia causing a massive drop in iron ore exports at the end of 2013, total iron ore exports were growing consistently and China was importing whatever was available to offset its own disappointing domestic output.

Addressing concerns of slow steaming masking actual global capacity, Leake commented, “I don’t think that the global fleet is going to speed up,” with the price of bunkers suppressing the likelihood of most vessels increasing their speed. Further on in 2016, Leake said that there is a possibility of more rapid fleet growth, should orders be placed this year.

Between miners possibly hitting their maximum output volumes around March of this year, and tight supply with low fleet growth, capesizes could be enjoying a year in demand.