Seatrade Maritime is part of the Informa Markets Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Golden Ocean, Star Bulk, Bocimar, CTM and Golden Union form Capesize Chartering jv

Golden Ocean, Star Bulk, Bocimar, CTM and Golden Union form Capesize Chartering jv
At a time when the dry bulk shipping market is hitting new lows five major shipowners have come together to form a joint venture Capesize Chartering in effort to operate more competitively.

Capesize Chartering brings together Golden Ocean Group, Star Bulk Carriers, Bocimar International, C Transport Holding CTM), and Golden Union Shipping, which will combine and coordinate the chartering of all five parties.

“The parties operate in the highly competitive and fragmented capesize industry, and neither party owns, controls or manages sufficient capesize vessels to provide competitively priced bids and efficient trading and operations to serve its customers,” Golden Ocean said in a statement.

The new joint venture is to start operations from mid-February from the existing offices of the five companies.

“For the customers this represents the benefit of a wider geographic area in which vessels can be made available and with shorter spread between loading dates,” the statement said. 

“For the shipowners the major benefit is achieving a reduction in costs, since always the best positioned vessel can be offered for a fixture of a cargo.”

The new joint venture aims to reduce ballast voyages, associated costs and bunker fuel expenditure.

“Our business vision and model will be to offer to the market, irrespective of ownership, the best suitable vessel taking into account the respective vessels' characteristics, position and availability,” it said.

The aim will be to improve and stabilise net voyage returns for the owners in the joint venture.

So far this year capesize T/C rates have averaged $6,510 per day.