coronavirus epidemic in China is still a fraught process, with too many unknown variables, but there are some early signs of the effect on physical shipments, reported Reuters.
China’s imports of crude oil and iron ore so far in February are running at levels well below the preceding months, and also from the same month last year, according to vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv.
What the numbers show is that the rate of discharge of cargoes is considerably slower, while the queue of vessels waiting to offload at Chinese ports seems to be longer than usual.
In other words, this doesn’t necessarily mean that China’s imports of crude and iron ore are plummeting, what it does mean is that the ports seem to be struggling to get back to normal volumes of cargo movements.