The outlook for dry-cargo shipping during 2022 could be just as good as 2021, if not better, according to the chief executive of bulker platform C Transport Maritime. A big clue is the fact that Brazilian iron-ore cargoes are absent from the current market, yet capesizes seem to be doing just fine, John Michael Radziwill told TradeWinds. “I think what is really encouraging is you still have capes at $15,000 a day without Brazil, and you have the minor bulks — panamax and down — at between $25,000 and $30,000 a day and, again, that’s with a big portion of the capesize pie not there,” he explained. “Once Brazil does come back and those exports start rolling out, ‘sure’ is a strong word but we’re pretty confident we’ll see some real fireworks in day rates. I would be very surprised if this year is lower than last year. I’ve been thinking that for a while.”

The orderbook for bulkers of all types is near a historically low level. Meanwhile, infrastructure projects around the world are still coming to fruition, which will entail continued demand for hard commodities, according to Radziwill. “I think what’s actually very bullish is seeing that the Chinese government is trying to cool down iron ore prices. If they didn’t care about the price of iron ore, they wouldn’t care about cooling them down,” he said. Coal will continue to “outperform” and soft commodities too. “With everything that’s going on in the world today, it’s a brave person who would bet that governments aren’t going to do everything they can to make sure they have enough food for their people,” he said.

CTM grew its fleet to around 160 bulkers last year, roughly 20 vessels more than in 2020. The fleet rises to 270 vessels including those co-managed with Capesize Chartering Limited. Most of the fleet — which ranges in size from 34,000-dwt handymaxes up to newcastlemax vessels — was traded in the spot market in CTM’s shipping pools last year. Most of the newcomers entering bulkers into CTM’s commercial management are people who have been involved in shipping previously, he told TradeWinds. “But we have seen and we’re working with people who have never had a ship before coming in. We are seeing a little bit more interest in that area from, let’s say, new money — but not hugely significant,” he said. “A lot of the kind of people that would come into shipping are, let’s say, very open-minded about their different global investments, so in this kind of an environment, I think they’ve probably done very well in other places so that’s inhibiting or just not making it that enticing for them to look at shipping. But I think we’re moving into an industrial cycle in general and more of a value-investment world, and I think shipping is very good for that.”

The scale of its platform and the different views of its 35 members gives CTM good visibility of markets overall, Radziwill said. This makes it well placed to advise its clients on what commercial opportunities to seize and which to avoid. “In supramaxes [early last year], suddenly, the period rates went up to $20,000 a day, which is a lot more than they’d been for a long time. So, you saw a lot of people just kind of close their eyes and take that rate — and that was a mistake,” he said. CTM operates a supramax pool, a capesize pool and a smaller panamax pool of up to 10 vessels, in addition to its commercial management and other services.

Radziwill said supramaxes were the best-performing segment of CTM’s commercially managed fleet in 2021. “If you did take up that fixture, you’re probably out $3.5m for that year alone, [by] not running in the spot market. It adds up quickly. If you have three supramaxes, suddenly you could have been $10m richer if you had just discerned a little bit what was going on and not just taken a total critical approach.” At its heart, CTM is “for the shipowner,” Radziwill said. “We want to fight for the owners. I believe that shipowners deserve most of the economic pie in the shipping industry, so that’s kind of a goal in general. Each ship we do it with, whoever it belongs to, I think it just helps the whole owning community.