Welcome to today's Pacific Basin 2026 first quarter trading update conference call. I am pleased to present Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Martin Fruergaard, and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jimmy Ng. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Mr. Fruergaard, please begin.
Yeah, thank you. Welcome, and thank you for attending Pacific Basin's 2026 first quarter trading update call. We will highlight a few key points in the published presentation before we proceed to Q&A. Please turn to slide two. Despite ongoing geopolitical disruptions and operational inefficiencies, including the outbreak of war in the Arabian Gulf in early March, our dry bulk freight markets have strengthened year-on-year. As a result, we delivered improved TCE earnings and strong market outperformance in the first quarter. Our Handysize and Supramax fleets recorded average net daily TCE earnings of $12,130 and $13,970 respectively, making year-on-year increases of 11% and 14%. These results reflect significant outperformance, with Q1 earnings exceeding the relevant indices by $1,030 per day for Handysize and $2,050 per day for Supramax.
Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2026, we have covered 70% of our committed vessel days for Handysize and 90% for Supramax at $14,000 and $17,080 per day respectively. For the second half of the year, coverage stands at 22% for Handysize and 35% for Supramax at $10,430 and $13,840 per day respectively. In addition to our strong performance, we have taken steps to further enhance and modernize our fleet. Today, we converted our existing order for 4 dual fuel Ultramax newbuildings announced in 2024 to four conventionally fueled Ultramax newbuildings, with an option to acquire two dual fuel Ultramax newbuildings, all to be constructed in Japan. Separately, we increased our newbuilding order with JNS in China from four to six Handysize vessels.
Now I will hand over to Jimmy for a quick overview of the first quarter performance and market review.
Thank you, Martin. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I will share with you some observations on the market and a snapshot of our operational performance for the period. Please turn to slide four. Freight rates increased in the early part of the first quarter of 2026, supported by strong dry bulk commodity flows. Market conditions remained volatile during the quarter, driven by the war in the Arabian Gulf, as well as route disruptions and bunker fuel price fluctuations. During the period, market spot rate for Handysize, at an average of approximately $11,100 per day, was 39% higher year-on-year, and the rate for Supramax, at an average rate of around $11,920 per day, was 51% higher year-on-year.
Overall, despite ongoing volatility and elevated geopolitical risk, freight market conditions across both segments remained healthy during the first quarter of 2026. FFA rates for the remainder of 2026 also points to a positive outlook. Please turn to slide five. Now, this page provides an overview of dry bulk trade developments for the period from January to March 2026. Beginning with minor bulk, total loadings declined by about 3% year-over-year. Volumes were led lower by aggregates, cement, and steel-related cargos, driven in part by disruptions in the Arabian Gulf and new licensing rules for Chinese exporters. This was partially offset by continued growth in bauxite and minor metals as China's vast industrial sector continued to attract ever greater imports. Fertilizer volumes softened in the period with prices increased, signaling a more cautious outlook for grain-related trade later in the year.
Now turning to grain, loadings increased by about 15% year-over-year. Export performance was strong across most major growing regions, supported by large harvests, particularly in East Coast South America. Export volumes from Ukraine and Russia, however, declined, continuing the trend observed in recent months. On the import side, China led demand growth supported by a stronger renminbi despite the escalation of geopolitical conflicts since late February. In coal, volumes declined by 5% year-over-year. In addition to the long-term structural downtrend, Indonesia shipments declined due to tighter export quotas, while Chinese and Indian coal imports also softened. However, coal prices increased following a spike in LNG prices across Asia, which provided temporary support for power-related demand. Prospects for coal trade for the remainder of 2026 have improved, notwithstanding long-term trends to phase out coal usage.
Now finally, on the rightmost column, you would see iron ore loadings increased by about 7% year-over-year. Chinese steel mills continue to demonstrate strong appetite for iron ore imports and stock building, aided by a strong renminbi. Economic indicators also suggest that property-related steel demand in Asia, in China in particular, may be stabilizing. Australia and Brazilian export volumes performed strongly, recovering from adverse weather in the same period last year. Pelletizing plants in Oman and Bahrain, however, led losses in the period. Now, in summary, although trade volumes were resilient in the first quarter of 2026, the evolving geopolitical landscape, particularly the Iran war, is expected to continue to reshape global trade flows and drive dislocations across dry bulk markets. These would add additional support to freight rates. Please turn to slide six.
In the first quarter of 2026, as Martin mentioned earlier, our daily average TCE earnings of $12,130 for Handysize and $13,970 for Supramax represented an increase of 11% and 14% as compared to the same period in 2025, respectively. Our TCEs continued to outperform average spot market rates by $1,030 per day for Handysize and $2,050 per day for Supramax. For the second quarter of 2026, we have currently covered 70% and 90% of our committed vessel days for our Handysize and Supramax core fleet at $14,000 and $17,080 per day, respectively. Now complementing our core business, our operating activity generated a daily average margin of $340 per day over 6,240 operating days in the first quarter. I will now hand you back to Martin to run you through market dynamics and outlook.
Thank you, Jimmy. Please turn to slide eight. Global dry bulk net fleet growth is forecasted to increase from 3% in 2025 to about 3.6% in 2026, driven by higher scheduled new building deliveries across the sector. By comparison, Handysize and Supramax net fleet growth is expected to moderate to about 3.8% in 2026, as new building activity remains more concentrated in larger vessel classes. Around 15% of Handysize and Supramax capacity is now more than 20 years old, and about 30% of total dry bulk capacity falls into this age category. The fleet age profile highlights both the ongoing fleet renewal needs and a growing number of older vessels that eventually will be scrapping candidates. Please turn to slide nine.
As I mentioned at the start, we have finalized agreement to replace our existing order at Imabari Shipbuilding in Japan for four dual-fuel Ultramax newbuildings with four conventionally fueled Ultramax newbuildings featuring the latest fuel-efficient design. This adjustment significantly reduces unnecessary near-term capital expenditure and reflects a financially prudent approach in light of renewed uncertainty surrounding the timing and final form of the global maritime green fuel transition regulations, especially after the failure to adopt IMO's Net Zero Framework in October 2025 due to political divisions among member states. To maintain flexibility, these new agreements include an option to acquire two dual-fuel methanol Ultramax newbuildings, allowing us to reenter the low emission vessel market if regulatory clarity improves within 2026.
Beyond this, we have also reached an agreement with JNS to order another 2 Handysize newbuildings, which will be built to the same latest generation fuel-efficient open-hatch and log-fitted design as the four vessels we ordered in December last year. With these transactions, our current order book consists of six Handysize and four Ultramax newbuildings, plus an option for two additional dual-fuel Ultramax newbuildings. We also hold purchase options that we can exercise between 2026 and 2031 for 15 long-term chartered-in vessels, twelve of which are already operating in the Pacific Basin fleet today, with the remaining three scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2026 and into 2027. These strategic moves helps to position us well to adapt to regulatory developments, manage capital prudently, and maintain fleet flexibility for the future. Please turn to slide ten.
The war has significantly disrupted trade flows, leading to a tighter supply of available vessels. In the short term, we are seeing around 2% of the sub-Capesize fleet currently trapped in the Arabian Gulf, which further restricts vessel supply. Meanwhile, global dry bulk cargo volumes have shifted noticeably. Before the conflict, volumes were growing at about 1.4% year-on-year. Since the outbreak, we've seen a sharp decline of roughly 6.6% year-on-year. This drop reflects a fear of fixing in the market as stakeholders remain cautious amid ongoing fluctuations in commodity prices, freight rates, and fuel prices.
However, as the market begins to adapt to the new price levels and end users look to restock inventories, we anticipate that pent-up demand will be released. Additionally, power utilities across Asia and Europe are expected to switch increasingly from LNG to coal, which should add further demand to the dry bulk sector. Looking to the future, if the war in the Arabian Gulf continues and energy prices remain high, we may see higher inflation and ultimately slower global economic growth. So far, the impact on Pacific Basin has been limited. We currently have one chartered vessel in the Arabian Gulf, and we are maintaining ongoing dialogue with both the owner and our charterers, so our exposure remains limited. We also receive solid support from our fuel suppliers and have covered most of our fuel price exposure through hedging and pass-through mechanisms.
On the operational side, we are able to capitalize on our investments in energy-saving devices, silicone applications, and voyage performance optimization through visualization, all focused on improving vessel speed and consumption profiles. Moreover, a relatively high number of open days in the second half of 2026 allow us the flexibility to maximize earnings as freight rates continues to rise. Please turn to slide eleven. As we look ahead to the rest of 2026, it's clear that we will be navigating another year marked by substantial market disruptions. From a broader macroeconomic perspective, economic growth is likely to slow down, largely, as a result of the aftermath of the Iran war. The IMF have already revised their growth forecast downwards, but the ultimate trajectory will depend on ongoing discussions between Iran and the U.S., as well as the timing of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
In the dry bulk sector, we anticipate that supply growth both for minor bulk and total dry bulk will outpace demand growth in the near term. This is primarily due to increased newbuilding deliveries and limited scrapping activities. Despite these challenges, market disruptions and inefficiencies are likely to provide ongoing support to dry bulk market conditions. Notably, freight forward agreements are holding at elevated levels for the rest of the year, with FFA averages for 2026 suggesting rates of around $14,080 per day for Handysize vessels and $16,230 per day for Supramax vessels. Of course, volatility is expected to persist given slower economic growth, multiple ongoing disruptors, and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. I am pleased to highlight our continued TCE outperformance, which demonstrates the strengths and resilience of our operating model.
This is underpinned by a fleet that is both growing and modernizing, our proactive fleet management, and our sector-leading cost efficiency. Coupled with our robust balance sheet and disciplined approach to growth, these strengths position Pacific Basin exceptionally well to manage near-term uncertainty and to seize opportunities as they arise. Here I would like to conclude our 2026 first quarter trading update presentation by thanking our Pacific Basin colleagues at sea and ashore for their contribution to our result. I will now hand over the call to the operators for Q&A. Thank you.
We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for today's speaker, please join the Zoom link via the blue Ask a Question button, press the Raise Hand button, and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please unmute yourself, state your name and company, and ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it is your turn to speak, please press the Lower Hand button to leave the queue. You may also type your questions in the Q&A box. We'll pause a moment to allow the queue to form. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the Raise Hand button at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Our first question comes from Nathan Gee. Please unmute your line and ask your question.
Hey, Martin. Hey, Jimmy. Thanks for the call. Maybe two questions from me. Firstly, I just want to clarify the impact of the war on dry bulk shipping, and maybe I missed the first 10 minutes of the presentation, so apologies about that. I just want to confirm, do you see it as having played as more of a positive or a negative for dry bulk market so far? That's the first question. Second question is just in terms of fuel availability. Your ships go into smaller ports. Are you seeing any evidence of fuel shortages anywhere and any risks over the next few months around that? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Nathan, and thank you for asking a question. I was getting a little bit nervous. First of all, about the war and the impact on the market, and I think it's important to remember that we had the start of the year as we normally do in, where the market goes down before the Chinese New Year, and then it starts going up. That's also what happened this year. The war starts, and we actually had at that time, the market was actually on the way up. When the war started, we actually had a month where rates actually came down a little bit for the Handysize and the Ultramaxes.
I think the reason for that was actually that all this uncertainty, everybody was stepping back and sort of trying to figure out what was going on, and, of course, fuel prices were peaking immediately. I think everybody was stepping back, waiting a little bit to see with all this volatility, waiting a little bit to see if things will settle down or when, if the war would end soon or if it was only a short duration. The war continued and after a while, I think people are stepping in again and having to replenish and get the cargoes moving. We actually now seeing an increase in the market. We also see the FFA actually looking quite active. It's of course such a change of commodities moving around.
Before the war, there was yearly about, I think about 30 million tons of fertilizers going out of the Arabian Gulf. That has to be replenished somewhere else, probably can't replenish it all. You see a lot of changes in the trading patterns and these are, again, these disruptors that drives our market going forward. As we say, we still have quite a bit of ships delivering. All this disruption actually changes the trading pattern has been very helpful for us. The market looks very positive at the moment. On top of that, you can say if coal has to replenish gas and so on, there's actually some upside. I think that's a space to watch going forward, what's happening on the coal front. Then about fuel availability. Clearly in the beginning, lots of concerns about fuel availability.
It seems now that things have settled down a little bit. We haven't had any issues with delivery of fuel. Of course, we had challenges with the price of the fuel. It went up quite a lot during March. Things have settled down, and I think that maybe also brings the customers a little bit back in the market. The bunker prices are still high, but they're settling a little bit compared to where they were in March. Actually prices now are about, I think $350 below the highest price we had in March. We don't see an issue with availability for our fleet, and I think we have had many of our loyal suppliers who have actually been quite loyal to us during this period. I think that the challenge sometimes, it's probably more with the refined products.
It's probably more the gas oil, more the jet fuel for the planes and these things, where the refineries are having some challenges. We also see that the gas oil, which is a refined product, the prices are very high still and availability is tight. So far so good.
Perfect. Maybe one quick follow-up if I can, just in terms of the buyback. Is there any update in terms of whether you've started that so far and just general thoughts on buying back at current levels? Thank you.
Yes. I think it's also important, we haven't said so much in the presentation, but asset values are also going up. Actually, secondhand values are now probably the highest they've been, if you take out 2022. It's actually the highest they've been since 2016. It's actually the highest prices for ten years. It's actually probably higher than it was in 2022. Secondhand values are very high at the moment. Of course, when we look at our share price and we compare to the fair market value of our assets, we are trading again below that part of it. We are evaluating all along if and when the right timing is to do the share buyback. We have $40 million, as we also had the last two couple of years.
We also have $40 million or announced $40 million this year. This year we have said up to $40 million. Of course, we follow a little bit the market to see if and when the right time is to go in to buy.
Perfect. Thank you. Thanks so much.
As a reminder, if you have a question for today's speaker, please join the Zoom link via the blue Ask a Question button on the webinar. Press the Raise Hand button and you will enter the queue. We'll pause a moment to allow the queue to form.
There are a couple of questions coming from the platform as written questions. This question is about, are you concerned that demand destruction due to weak industrial activity from inflation, fuel availability risk could outweigh ton-miles and coal demand uplift?
Yes, I'm always nervous about these things, but the world seems, at the moment at least, quite resilient. We also just saw numbers from growth in China this morning of 5%, which is quite impressive. It's clear that if, for instance, the war in the Arabian Gulf continues for longer and the Strait of Hormuz is closed and the oil price stays high, that will definitely have a negative impact on the world economy in the longer run, and it will probably create some inflation in the market. That I don't think will be good for us. On the other hand, in the short term, all this disruption, which is enormous actually, is actually quite positive for the earnings and for the activity level for the dry cargo space.
It's of course true that in the longer run, we would prefer to have more growth, global growth would be good and the situation at the moment is probably not very supportive around the long-term growth if the situation continues for long.
Okay. Thank you, Martin. There's one more question from the platform. Do you expect any one-off loss related with the vessel in the Gulf?
Well, we are quite balanced on the contractual liability on that ship. Of course, if the situation continues for long, there will of course be losses in that connection. For us, considering our size and our contractual obligations in this contract, it is minimum on that side of it. The exposure we basically have in respect to the situation we have now and the high oil price of these things and the situation in the Arabian Gulf is probably that the lube oil prices will go up a little bit, and then, of course, cost of flight tickets is up, and of course, we have a lot of crew members flying around the world. In the bigger scope of it's minimal compared to the upside we see in the market.
Thank you, Martin. There's one more question from the platform. Could you elaborate on the CapEx reduction from this shift to conventional fuel-powered new vessel orders?
Yeah, we can. We announced the order for the dual-fueled ships in 2024, and the price we announced was $46.5 million per ship. The new ships that we have acquired, they are priced at $39.2 million. The difference between that is $7.7 million for each of the four ships in it. It will not have an immediate impact in 2026 on our cash flow because we have already paid the first installment on that. As the ships are progressing on building and being delivered, that's the reduction in the CapEx on these four ships. For each ship, $7.7 million.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press the Raise Hand button at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We'll pause a moment to allow a queue to form. As there are no further questions, we will now begin closing remarks. Please go ahead, Mr. Martin Fruergaard.
Yeah. Thank you very much for listening in to our Q1 trading update. Should you later have any questions after having studied the material, then please feel free to call us, and call our investor relations team. Thank you very much, and have a good evening.
This concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending.