Pacific Basin Shipping has continued last year's spending spree on vessel acquisitions despite what the company said was a weak outlook, "with moderate seasonal variations", for the dry bulk market this year.
The firm added a ninth dry bulk vessel to the eight it has agreed to buy for US$122 million since September last year.
No details of the ship or the price paid were given in the firm's first quarter trading update issued yesterday. But the company said its "strategic objective is to expand our dry bulk core fleet at attractive prices".
Six of the nine vessels have already joined the fleet while the remaining three will be delivered by the middle of this year. They comprise seven Handysize vessels of 25,000 to 39,999 deadweight tonnes and two Handymax ships of 40,000 to 64,999 dwt.
Pacific Basin, the largest Handysize operator in the world, paid an average US$15.25 million for the eight ships. It said the value of a five-year-old 32,000 dwt Handysize ship had risen to US$17 million, from US$16 million in the second half of last year.
Pacific Basin outperformed the underlying Handysize spot charter market by minimising the number of unladen voyages to load cargo.
