Freight rates, which have spiked in 2021 and impacted steel and ferro-alloy markets, are likely to remain high in 2022 due to an imbalance of demand and availability of ships and containers, panelists said during Fastmarkets' International Ferro-alloys Conference this week in Prague.
"Freight rates have increased from three to four times this year compared to previous normal levels, mainly due to the Covid-19-related slowdown at ports leading to congestion delay, and we had to change the geography of our export sales in response to this," said Ravi Singh, chief executive officer at Sulb Company, Bahrain. "A large percentage of ships have been taken over on charter hire...