Net profit ran to $5.8m which was a big turnaround from a loss of $90.7m through the first half of 2014.

Pacific Basin’s core dry bulk business however continued to be in the red turning in a net loss of $15.4m.

Chief executive, Mats Berglund, said the result should be seen in the context of one of the weakest ever half year periods for the dry bulk market.

Pacific Basin’s towage business was profitable with the sale of the majority of this business generating first half proceeds of $73m.

Revenues for the first half fell to $635m from $910m through the same period of last year

The handysize and handymax fleet brought in daily earnings of US$7,940 and US$9,350 per day respectively, an outperformance of the Baltic Exchange’s market indices.

The handymax operation was turned around in the first half by focussing on key routes but the handysize fleet remained under pressure in a weak market.

“The first half of 2015 was a record low half-year for dry bulk market rates” noted Berglund, “undermined by reduced Chinese dry bulk demand and the cumulative oversupply of ships.”

“We delivered a profit and positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation despite this challenging environment, benefiting from a significant turnaround in our handymax performance, our intensified efforts to reduce costs, and handysize and handymax earnings that outperformed spot market rates by 60% and 49% respectively, added Berglund.

But the strategy of Pacific Basin is to exit non-core businesses to fully focus on the handysized and handymax dry bulk markets.

Pacific Basin said it had 58% and 62% of its handysized and handymax capacity covered for the second half of 2015.

The medium term market outlook is viewed as likely to remain weak as a result of overcapacity and reduced commodity demand – especially for Chinese coal imports.

Pacific Basin also noted that negative sentiment was driving increased scrapping, newbuilding cancellations and postponements but very little new ordering was taking place.

In a stock exchange the company said the “inflection point is difficult to forecast and will likely be triggered by unexpected demand side events.”

Hong Kong based Pacific Basin is the world largest operator of handysized bulk carriers, trading 197 vessels, 81 of which are owned.