Star Bulk Carriers reported a loss for the first three months of this year, mostly due to heftier expenses from a larger fleet and down days for exhaust gas scrubber installations.
While the figures fell short of Wall Street expectations analysts were encouraged by the company's second quarter guidance.
The New York-listed owner posted a $5.34m loss versus a $9.9m profit a year earlier.
Revenue gained 38% to $166.5m but voyage expenses almost doubled to $44.9m and charter-in hire costs grew 36% to $22.6m amid the increased drydockings for scrubber fits.
Vessel operating expenses jumped a third to $39.1m and drydocking expenses ballooned to $9.72m from $1.
"By the end of May 2019, we are on track to have 40 vessels scrubber fitted," chief executive Petros Pappas said.
"We expect to have a fully scrubber fitted fleet by January 2020."
Star Bulk added 34 capesizes to its fleet in 2018, bringing its fleet up to 111 vessels.
All scrubbers on by 2020
He said the company plans to install scrubbers on 52 ships through drydocking and on 50 more ships while at sea this year to take advantage of what may be a prosperous 2020.
"Because we expect 2020 to be a more profitable year, we want to maximize the operating days in 2020 and we thus bring forward to 2019 all our drydocks that would otherwise be due in 2020," he said.
Missed Wall Street consensus
Star Bulk reported an adjusted net loss of $8.5m versus an adjusted profit of $11.9m for the same period last year.
This was in great part due to a $3.09m unrealised loss on forward freight agreements and bunker swaps.
The owner saw a $0.09 loss per share, below a year-ago $0.18 earnings per share and missing analyst estimates by $0.03.
Star Bulk guided 76% of the fleet had been fixed for the second quarter at $10,006 per day, with both capesize and supramax vessels ahead of the Baltic benchmarks, analysts at Clarksons Platou Securities said.
“The indicated improvement in revenue for the second quarter means that Star Bulk is likely to come through this weaker period without any major impact on its balance sheet,” they explained.
