J. Lauritzen Cuts Number of Bulkers by 15

Danish shipping company J. Lauritzen has removed 15 bulk carriers from its fleet amid a weak shipping market marked by low freight rates across all dry bulk vessel sizes.

The Hellerup-headquartered company’s controlled fleet stood at 68 bulk carriers in the first quarter of 2019, down from 83 units in the same quarter in 2018.

J. Lauritzen said that the market for handysize bulk carriers was weak throughout the first quarter and the handysize index ended approximately 30% below the level recorded one year ago.

Mads P. Zacho, ceo of J. Lauritzen, commented that “global trade tensions together with problems affecting Brazilian iron ore exports negatively impacted dry cargo demand with larger freight rate declines for bulk carriers of all sizes”.

"The market for small gas carriers saw a minor decline for ethylene and pressurised tonnage in Q1 compared with the same period in 2018, whereas the market for semi-refrigerated tonnage was up by 35% on last year," it said.

Dry cargo markets were negatively impacted by the Brazilian mining incident in early 2019 and ongoing global trade tensions which caused larger freight rate declines across all dry bulk vessel sizes, it said.