The slump into the red suffered by China Cosco Holdings in the first quarter of this year bodes ill for other shipping companies specialising in the dry bulk sector, a leading transport analyst said yesterday.
Jon Windham, director and head of industrials research at Barclays Capital, said the China Cosco results were a 'pretty good barometer' for other shipping companies focused on the transport of dry cargoes such as iron ore, coal and grain.
He added the results 'definitely' reflected a 'wider industry malaise'.
'Everyone in dry bulk shipping is feeling the pain,' Windham said.
He thought firms such as Pacific Basin Shipping, which already had 76 per cent of its fleet of handysize and handymax dry cargo ships chartered for this year, would feel less pain than others. But average daily charter rates for Pacific Basin are down.
The Baltic dry index, compiled from a basket of charter rates for various sizes of dry cargo ships on key trading routes, has fallen 62 per cent year on year and closed at 1,269 on Thursday. The six-month charter rate for an 180,000 deadweight tonne (dwt) Capesize ship was down to US$12,750 per day, the same rate for a 32,000 dwt handysize vessel less than a fifth the size.
