The Baumarine by MaruKlav panamax bulker pool has logged what it calls a strong end to 2022, beating the Baltic Exchange benchmark over the year.
The joint venture owned by Norway’s Torvald Klaveness and Japan’s Marubeni Corp said earnings in December averaged a net $13,943 per day, or $14,677 gross.
This is above the Baltic’s P5TC index for the same month.
For 2022 as a whole, Baumarine by MaruKlav came in $891 per day ahead of the P5TC index.
Pool head Carl-Martin Graf said the results were down to the deliberate and dynamic positioning of the fleet across the different basins and a direct outcome of the “close and good” collaboration with owners.
“During December we repositioned three more vessels from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean, moved one vessel from the Indian Ocean via South Africa to Europe, and in early January concluded a repositioning leg for one of our vessels — opening Japan for a grain cargo via Nopac [North Pacific] to West Africa,” he added.
“We are deliberately using the lower paying markets in the Pacific to reposition our fleet for the potential post-Chinese New Year effects, aiming to regain the investments we are doing now in January and February going into Q2 2023,” Graf said.
Standard kamsarmaxes brought in $7.5m on a net basis, with six of 12 months above the Baltic benchmark.
The pool carried 14.3m tonnes of cargo comprising 24 different commodities. This represents 198 fixtures.
Converting from spot to fixed earnings
Members have an option to convert spot to fixed earnings at peaks in the forward freight agreement (FFA) cycle.
In 2022, 20 conversions were done for 607 vessel days, delivering an earnings upside of $3.12m.
Maruklav managing director Michael Jorgensen said new vessels were welcomed during 2022, meaning this year has started with 30 ships from 15 different owners.
“While we seek to grow the pool volume for increased geographical and timing coverage, we will also strive to continue delivering value in terms of earnings for each member during 2023 both through the absolute performance but also through the fixed-rate vehicle, an instrument that created significant values for our members in 2022,” he added.
Ignacio Pizarro, global head of partner relations, explained a key differentiating factor is a close dialogue with members.
“We invest a lot of time with daily communication on anything happening around their vessels — share our learnings to help get control on the timing back to them — all to maximise their vessels’ earnings,” he said.
“We take care of their assets as our own. With one-on-one calibration calls with each of our members, we discuss anything on their vessel and help them to convert from spot to fixed earnings at any given time while trading with us,” Pizarro added.
The pool also helps owners buy the right vessels in the secondhand market, with a full commercial evaluation of candidate ships they are planning to inspect.
