Ocean Freight Shipping Rates on the Rise

After a downtrend in the freight shipping tanker market since the middle of 2007, the industry has seen nothing but rate increases in the last month. This freight rate increase can affect consumers across the board, according to the freight transportation The cost of freight shipping can mean an increase in the cost of many consumer products, according to FreightBrokering.info, which is why it's so important to keep freight transportation costs down. There are many reasons why the costs of ocean freight shipping have increased. Indian Oil Corporation recently paid $9 million in freight transportation charges for shipping crude oil on a very large crude carrier from West Africa to Vadinar, India. The high freight rate was a result of oil firms scrambling to hire ships before the holiday season started, leading to a shortage of ships. Another recent event that may be affecting the ocean freight rate is an accident that occurred on December 7 about five miles off the coast and 93 miles southwest of Seoul, which caused South Korea's worst oil spill in history. Single-bottomed tankers are already scheduled to be phased out worldwide by 2010 under an international maritime treaty, and demands to ban single-hull tankers ahead of the deadline have now emerged. This leaves more demand for other types of freight shipping vessels, and the resources are not necessarily there.