Jinhui Shipping and Transportation has posted a fourth quarter loss on the back of the weaker freight rate environment seen at the end of 2018.
It lost just over $3m in the period figures released Thursday show. This contrasts with a profit of $2.5m in the same quarter in 2017.
The Oslo-listed shipowner said revenue was down 16% year-on-year to $17.7m, which was partially offset by a 20.7% drop in costs to $9.6m.
The shipowner’s results were largely impacted by the reduction of its fleet following the sale of four vessels in the first half of the year.
It also said that average of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) during the fourth quarter was 1,363 points versus the 1,509 seen in the same quarter in 2017.
However, the average daily time charter equivalent (TCE) rates earned by its fleet only suffered a slight decrease of 1% to $9,815 compared to 12 months earlier.
“The dry bulk shipping market improved remarkably in the first half of 2018, driven mainly by strong Chinese dry bulk imports and limited tonnage growth and high level of demolitions activities,” said Jinhui.
“Both BDI and charter rates across all vessel classes had been showing encouraging improvements when comparing the first half of 2017.”
However, it said market sentiment altered in the last quarter of 2018 due to the tension caused by the US-China trade war.
"Freight rates were suppressed by the rapidly softening demand for global seaborne trading activities, in particular to iron-ore and coal, grain and soybean trading activities," it added.
For the full year, Jinhui posted a net profit of $8.7m including a net gain of $5.4m on the disposal of four bulkers. In 2017 it posted a loss of just over $4m.
