Diana Shipping is getting ready to take full advantage of a dry bulk market that, in its view, is about to get much more visible and even stronger — though it is not saying how exactly.
The Semiramis Paliou-led owner of 36 bulkers on Tuesday posted its first profit in almost two years amid higher time-charter rates, which its executives believe may go even higher.
"I think now it is more clear what is happening in the market," chief operating officer and secretary Ioannis Zafirakis said during Diana's second-quarter earnings call with analysts.
"We're going to see the remainder of the year stronger, then the next year beginning very strong and that would be the best time for us to utilise our balances in the best way possible for ourselves."
Eyeing the arsenal
"This is why you have seen us in a disciplined manner waiting before we release all of our weapons as a company in the market," Zafirakis added.
While brimming with optimism, he was short on details as to which of Diana's "weapons" will be taken up or how.
"I cannot give you an assurance about what is going to happen or what we will do," he said.
"The only thing that is certain ... is that we have also options ahead of us to do what we will consider to be the most appropriate risk-reward ratio for our shareholders."
He said that market "overreaction" to challenges such as carbon emissions and financing have kept vessel supplies at very low levels, which should lead to an even stronger market.
"This is our belief," he said.
"Provided the demand stays where it is or improves a bit, we're going to see that happen.
"People are very reluctant, looking at the problems, but they don't understand that there has been an overreaction to those problems."
Back to 2008 levels?
Whether the market will get strong enough to see Baltic Dry Index (BDI) rates go as high as they did in 2008 has yet to be seen, however, according to president Anastasios Margaronis.
The BDI, which lost one point on Tuesday to hit 3,281 points, reached an all-time high of 11,793 points on 20 May 2008.
"To say that it's likely will make us overly optimistic and very aggressive, which we traditionally never are and never have been, but is it possible?" he said during the call.
"It is and I can envisage a scenario for example where demand continues going up, not in the explosive way that it did in 2008, but in a very healthy manner."
But rates may go higher still if a building boom for boxships and other types of vessels slows expansion of the global dry bulk fleet.
"Suddenly we realise that even if we want to build ships we can't build them for the next three years," he said.
"You don't need an enormous shortage of ships to have rates going up by a lot, so if we see persistence shortage of bulk carriers and psychology moves in the right direction, we could conceivably see numbers of the order that we saw back in 2008."
