Dry CargoGreater China

Pacific Basin set to resume fleet expansion

Hong Kong shipowner Pacific Basin says it is back in the market for buying opportunities having paused its fleet growth plans in the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last year, Pacific Basin had been building its fleet via secondhand acquisitions and consistently said it would continue to opportunistically buy good quality secondhand ships. This came to an end in April this year, when the company put the brakes on fleet expansion plans due to the “unprecedented market uncertainty” caused by Covid-19.

In its third quarter trading update, Pacific Basin says that it plans to fully draw on its $33.5m credit facility, and along with a revolving credit facility secured in June, it has sufficient liquidity to look at further expansion.

“We will again consider compelling opportunities to grow our owned fleet with larger, high-quality secondhand acquisitions,” the company said.

Pacific Basin currently owns 117 ships and in the third quarter had an average of 238 ships on the water including chartered ships. Early this month, one of the company’s oldest and smallest handysize vessels was sold, with delivery scheduled in the next four weeks.

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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