Eagle Bulk Shipping chief executive Gary Vogel says US grain exports will continue to run higher, following the healthy level of export growth seen in 2016.
Other minor bulk trades should also continue to see good growth given pledges from US President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping to boost infrastructure spending.
Vogel delivered the remarks earlier today during an earnings conference call for the Nasdaq-listed company. He says that current estimates of dry bulk demand growing 2% and 3% this year could be beat should trade activity catch up with improving world economies.
"Compared to historic norms, trade demand remains out of sync with GDP growth," Vogel said. "We believe a reversion to the historic mean could lead dry bulk growth to surpass 4% in the medium term."
In the supramax and ultramax segment, Vogel sees good growth in the world grain trade, which accounts for 20% of cargo volumes for the supramax fleet. Vogel says the grain trade could grow 3% this year.
China remains the driver of this trade, thanks to soybean demand. Vogel says that high import levels from the Brazil and US should remain boost tonne-mile demand for supramax and ultramax vessels.
The US Department of Agriculture said shipped and unshipped export sales for US soybeans in the current marketing year are up 24% from the last marketing year to 54.2 million metric tonnes. China is leading the way with export sales projected to be up 29% to 34.7 million metric tonnes.
US grain exports, in particular, "were robust in the fourth quarter and this continued well into first quarter," Vogel said.
Vogel says minor bulks such as cement, steel and petcoke "continue to generate consistenent trade demand growth."
Trump's plan to spend $1 trillion rebuilding US infrastructure and China's "One Belt, One Road" project will be supportive of "steel and cement demand."
