Following are comments by Nicolai Hansteen, chief economist at Pareto Shipping, a unit of Pareto Securities AS, who spoke at the third Scandinavian Shipping and Ship Finance Conference in Copenhagen.
“We are fundamentally optimistic on dry bulk, encouraged by Chinese dry-bulk import growth,” Hansteen said. “The second quarter is going to be a very weak quarter, but we expect to see a recovery in freight rates in the second half of this year, driven by Chinese imports.”
On dry-bulk imports into China:
“China now accounts for 40 percent of dry-bulk imports. Dry-bulk import volumes will increase by 500 million metric tons by 2016. Chinese iron-ore imports will reach 1 billion tons by 2015. China will import more than 40 million tons of coking coal in 2013. Steam coal imports will exceed 220 million tons this year.”
On the dry-bulk market and fleet:
“The dry-bulk market will grow 6 percent annually between 2013 and 2016. The orderbook for new dry-bulk vessels stands at 20 percent of the fleet. Ten percent of the dry-bulk fleet is older than 21 years.”