Norway’s Torvald Klaveness has announced that it will shift its primary focus in dry bulk to the panamax to post-panamax segment going forward, a move which will see Klaveness Chartering scale down its activity in the supramax segment.
Klaveness says that Klaveness Chartering has a particular stronghold in the panamax, kamsarmax and post-panamax segments and this has significant synergies with the rest of the group.
Klaveness currently owns 12 combination carriers via its newly listed Klaveness Combination Carriers and has another five on order at China’s Jiangsu New Yangzijiang.
Lasse Kristoffersen, CEO of Torvald Klaveness, commented: “We have a wide portfolio of activities in our group and have concluded that to grow and develop we need to focus our efforts where we have the strongest competitive positions. We have a lot to offer our customers in the panamax segment and will continue to develop our presence and service together with them. This also means that we will do less business in the supramax segment, but our customers can rest assured that we will honor all our commitments and also find good solutions for them going forward.”
Further explaining the decision to Splash, Kristoffersen said: “Panamax segment has for a while been the segment with the highest activity and the area where we truly can make a difference for our customers. Hence, this is where we will put most of our efforts going forward.”
Kristoffersen said the company has typically operated around 30-40 supramaxes, in addition to those within the company’s pools. He added that despite the reduction in its supramax activities, the plan is to continue to grow its pools and seek partners to assist with their expansion.
“We believe in our pool offerings and will seek to develop Baumarine and Bulkhandling through strategic partnerships. We are currently in the process of investigating and concluding these partnerships,” Kristoffersen told Splash.
Klaveness has two pools, the Bulkhandling scheme for handymax, supramax and ultramax vessels and the Baumarine scheme for panamax, kamsarmax and post-panamax vessels.
Earlier in the year, Klaveness downsized its Shanghai office by moving chartering functions to Singapore in order to focus on operations.
