Pacific Basin goes big with more handysize, ultramax charter deals

Hong Kong-based Pacific Basin Shipping dry bulk company has signed agreements for the long-term inward charter of many handysize and ultramax vessels, to support growth and renewal of its core fleet.

This month, the company’s operations director, Suresh Prabhakar, and his wife attended the launching of the ship Mount Hood, which is a 40,000 dwt handysize newbuilding.

The Mount Hood is going to join Pacific Basin’s long-term time-chartered fleet.

Pacific Basin Shipping has already taken delivery of one long-term time-chartered Japanese-built 39,650 dwt handysize newbuilding in July, and expects the delivery of another Japanese-built 40,000 dwt handysize newbuilding in December of 2023.

It’s worth noting that the company has also signed additional long-term charter deals for four Japanese-built 40,000 dwt handysize newbuildings, all with scrubbers, scheduled to be delivered by the first quarter of 2025.

In addition, Pacific Basin signed long-term time charters for one 64,000 dwt ultramax newbuilding due to be delivered in 2024, and two 64,000 dwt ultramax newbuildings, which are expected to be delivered in 2025.

Each of these time-charters comes with an option to extend the charter agreement at the fixed rate. Furthermore, Pacific Basin has the option to purchase the vessels at a fixed price, which further expands the company’s optionality.

The company’s long-term strategy is to grow its owned fleet of supramax vessels by buying modern, second-hand vessels, and to upgrade its older and less-efficient handysize vessels with newer and larger ones.

In its fleet portfolio the shipowner reports a total of 90 handysize vessels, which 70 are owned and 20 are chartered.

The owner reports a handysize core fleet comprising owned vessels and ships chartered in for one year or longer.

Furthermore, its supramax core fleet includes owned vessels and ships chartered in for one year or longer.

Its supramax fleet portfolio, in accordance with the latest information, consists of 66 vessels in total, of which 50 are owned and 16 are chartered.