Senior dry bulk shipping players are displaying cautious optimism that freight rates have bottomed out and the market may have turned the corner.
“I think we’ve seen the worst,” John Platsidakis, managing director at Angelicoussis-controlled Anangel Maritime Services, told a Capitallink conference in Athens on the opening day of Posidonia.
“There are some positive indications that the good market is not that far away,” Platsidakis added, citing the lack of newbuilding orders and demolitions, as well as the approach of special surveys and ballast water management rules.
Hamish Norton, president of US-listed Star Bulk Carriers, also said shipowners appear much more sanguine these days.
“I was on the boat of a very wise man last night… I think he is much more motivated by greed at this point of the cycle,” he told the same conference.
“It’s interesting how quickly sentiment changes,” said George Achniotis, chief financial officer at Navios Maritime Holdings.“Shipowners that have money think that’s a time to buy,” he said.
Cash may be burnt for a few months, he admitted, but values were currently so low that they still made sense for cash-rich owners taking a long-term view.
Optimism was not unanimous on the panel though. “I’m not so bullish as some people here who have said that the market may have bottomed out… I think it’s too early to say that the market bottomed out,” said Pankaj Khanna, CEO of Pioneer Marine.
Seasonal factors and a bounce in commodity prices played a large role in the recent rebound of drybulk freight rates, he said.
Even the optimists are cautious about when a full-blow recovery may come. Seeing the worst “does not necessarily mean the market will boom soon,” Platsidakis said. “Possibly we’ll may have to wait until mid-17,” he said.
