Winning Shipping in deal with Cargill, Bunge to move bauxite on Capesize: sources

Winning Shipping has fixed a contract of affreightment deal with ship-operator Cargill Shipping and Bunge Shipping to move 1.52 million mt of bauxite from the Dominican Republic to China over 2015, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

Cargill and Bunge will each move four 190,000-mt cargoes over 2015 starting on March, loading from the port of Cabo Rojo and discharging at Qingdao, at $16.45/mt and $16.50/mt respectively, the sources added.

The COA terms also include a load rate of 12,000 mt/day and a discharge rate of 30,000 mt/day on Sundays, Holidays Included clause.

Winning Shipping declined to comment on the deal, while Cargill and Bunge could not be reached.

Singapore and Qingdao-based Winning Shipping mainly moves bauxite into China, with the majority of cargoes from Indonesia. But since the country implemented a ban on mineral exports January 2014, China has been importing bauxite from other countries, a shipowner source said.

China started importing bauxite from the Dominican Republic in October 2013. It imported 1.60 million mt of the material in 2014 from the republic as of November, making it China’s fifth largest source of bauxite for the year, according to the latest data out from China’s General Administration of Customs.