Hong Kong-listed Pacific Basin Shipping recorded a profit of USD5.8 million in the first six months of 2015, due to unrealised derivative income.
Excluding one-off items, the company’s loss narrowed 32% year on year to USD14.6 million for the same period due to a decrease in its dry bulk revenue, a stock filing of Pacific Basin said on 30 July.
The company booked an unrealised derivative income of USD16.7 million mainly from an increase in average oil prices when compared to the end of 2014, which affected its bunker fuel swap contracts.
Revenue fell 30% year on year to USD634.6 million.
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At mid-year, Pacific Basin operated 197 dry bulk carriers, of which 81 were self-owned.
The company has also reduced its chartered-in fleet by 13 since the end of March.
“We are operating more owned vessels and redelivering expiring medium and long-term chartered ships to further reduce our daily vessel costs while enabling greater control and service quality,” Pacific Basin commented.
In addition, a total of 17 self-owned and eight chartered newbuildings will join the core fleet over the next two years, the company said. The newbuildings on order have also decreased from late March, when Pacific Basin said it had 18 self-owned newbuildings and 10 chartered newbuildings on order.
“The health of dry bulk shipping is undermined by an oversupplied global fleet and reduced growth in dry bulk commodity demand, especially coal into China. While traditionally improved seasonal cargo flows in the second half may benefit from China’s need for some restocking, we expect it will take longer for a healthier market to be restored,” the company concluded.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.