Dry Bulk Recovery will Require a Team Effort

Experts believe the dry bulk market is positioned to become profitable by 2019 – but only if a series of sustained measures are taken year on year by the ship owning community as a whole, according to a report recently published by BIMCO.

 

Peter Sand, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO, discussed the recently published analysis of the dry bulk market - the “Road to Recovery” in an interview at BIMCO House. According to Sand, effective action needs to be taken by everyone in the dry bulk sector in order to achieve market recovery. 

 

“We have a significant overcapacity issue in the dry bulk industry, and it can only be solved in a reasonable amount of time if we take some ships out of the active fleet,” Sand said.

 

“What we're looking for here is a neutralized fleet growth going forward, because then we can gradually get into profitable freight levels – which do not see right now, which we haven’t seen since 2011.”

 

According to BIMCO’s analysis, the entire dry bulk ship owners must collectively realize the demolition of ships and avoid ordering new ships.

 

“If we, say, fail to accomplish the zero percent of supply growth rates for the years to come by only, say, limiting the supply growth to 1 percent growth in future years, we will postpone the eventual recovery by three years. That's basically doubling the number of years we could spend on bringing ourselves back into profitable levels,” Sand said.