Dry bulk shipping saw higher spot rates across the board on Wednesday as China goes back to work following the Lunar New Year holidays. Larger vessels saw the biggest jump in the day. The Baltic Exchange’s capesize 5TC, a spot-rate average across five key routes, rose 25% in one day to $12,468 per day. But all major dry bulk segments saw gains as well, with the average supramax rates surging 10.2% and panamaxes gaining 9.2% on Wednesday.

“This is mainly attributed to the Chinese coming back to ‘business as usual’ following the inactivity that the Chinese New Year Holidays entailed, which created a backlog of orders,” EastGate Shipbrokers founder and head Sevi Katemoglou told TradeWinds. The Baltic Exchange reported just nine spot fixtures being signed on Wednesday for all vessel classes except handysizes at above-average rates.

Refined Success chartered Transmed Shipping’s 203,149-dwt Pigi (built 2014) at $18,000 per day plus a $1m ballast bonus for a voyage from Guinea to China. Loading is set to start 22 February. Glencore subsidiary ST Shipping & Transport hired STC Shipping’s 81,756-dwt panamax Plainpalais (built 2015) at $21,000 per day plus $1.1m ballast bonus for a trip from East Coast South America to the Far East.

The freight forward agreement (FFA) market is also showing charterers’ eagerness to hire ships across all size classes, said Sevi Katemoglou, founder and head of EastGate Shipbrokers in Athens. “The green FFA marks across all vessel sizes and calendar quarters are also reflecting the renewed enthusiasm for an overall good performance of the dry bulk sector this year,” she told TradeWinds.

Capesizes were the biggest winners, especially after the physical index made such a huge leap on Wednesday. Positive sentiment pushed the March contract up 13% over the course of the day to settle at $21,214 per day. The April capsize contract closed $2,193 higher on Wednesday at $25,829 per day, equivalent to a gain of just over 9%.