Dry CargoEurope

Castor Maritime takes fleet to 12 with third kamsarmax acquisition

Nasdaq-listed Greek owner Castor Maritime continues its strong start to 2021, sealing another addition to its fleet.

The cash-rich company has agreed to acquire a Korean-built (2010) kamsarmax bulker for a price of $14.8m. The identity of the vessel acquired and the seller were not revealed, and broking reports are yet to show a transaction for a matching vessel.

Castor says the vessel is due for delivery during the end of the first quarter of this year, or the beginning of next quarter.

Petros Panagiotidis, chief executive officer of Castor, commented: “We are very happy to announce the acquisition of our third Kamsarmax dry bulk vessel and remain committed to our plan of steadily deploying capital and growing our fleet. Upon completion of all our recently announced acquisitions, our fleet will consist of twelve vessels, doubling in size since the beginning of 2021. We are working diligently in identifying and taking advantage of attractive opportunities presented to us across vessel sizes and segments.”

Castor was a pureplay panamax bulker owner, however earlier this month the company bought its first kamsarmax and followed up with a second kamsarmax buy just a few days later. It then went on to acquire its first tankers with the acquisition of a pair of aframax tankers.

With the Baltic Dry Index rocketing up this week, analysts are talking up a dry bulk shipping supercycle. Norwegian broker Lorentzen & Stemoco yesterday described the kamrsarmax market as a stellar market “with freight rates going from highs to highs”.

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrade’s Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.
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