DryDel Shipping widens its impressive array of dry bulk activity
By Harry Papachristou in Athens
Just three Greek shipping companies ordered big bulkers last year: Capital Ship Management, Samos Steamship and DryDel Shipping — the plucky diversified dry bulk outfit run by Costas Delaportas.
A pair of 182,000-dwt ships inked in December at Japan’s Namura Shipbuilding marked the first time either DryDel or its predecessor, Meadway Shipping & Trading, founded by his late father Dionysis, became involved with capesizes.
“I love making deals and I am fast at decision-making,” Costas Delaportas said in an interview with TradeWinds at his Athens office.
His taste for new departures became evident four years ago when he visited Namura in the depths of the Covid-19 crisis to order four 40,000-dwt handymax newbuildings.
“Everybody was telling me I was making a wrong move and that the ships were too expensive, but I trusted my instinct and faith in Japanese shipyards,” he said.
Delivered last year, all four have already appreciated in value.
Whether small handysizes or large capesizes — Delaportas’ rationale is the same: he expects modern, Japanese-built tonnage to achieve higher earnings than the older vessels they compete against.
His handymax bet is paying off: burning five to eight tonnes less fuel per voyage than older ships, they achieve a premium in the spot market.
That allowed the company to not merely stay in the black in 2024 but boost its net income for a fifth consecutive year.
“Despite a difficult year for dry bulk, we managed to maintain a strong balance sheet and increase our profitability for yet another year,” Delaportas said.
Wider market factors also influenced the capesize order.
With a low orderbook at about 7% of the existing fleet, Delaportas anticipates modern capesizes will be in short supply by the time his ships are delivered in 2028, coinciding with an expected surge in bauxite exports from West Africa to China.
“There will be a shortage of modern, eco-type capes then,” he said.
The 40,500-dwt Carpe Diem (built 2024) is one of four modern, Japanese-built handysizes DryDel Shipping took delivery of last year. Photo: DryDel Shipping
“China will need bauxite to support its aluminium production, which is essential for industries like electric vehicles and solar panels.”
Capesizes are the right size to benefit from such trades, he argued — big enough to better capture economies of scale than ultramaxes or kamsarmaxes, yet small enough to trade flexibly and call at more ports than bigger newcastlemaxes.
Booked in a joint venture with a Japanese shipowner, the Namura order also highlights DryDel’s attachment to the Far Eastern country.
All the company’s vessels are Japanese-built. It has 10 under construction and 12 on the water, with an average age of four years.
Japanese owners also own most of the 20 bulkers DryDel separately charters in under long-term contracts.
The company primarily deploys them to transport its own cargoes under contracts of affreightment and forward supply agreements with partners like Itochu Corp, CHS, Olam and Louis Dreyfus Co.
“I always believed cargo is king in the dry business,” Delaportas said.
It was with this credo in mind that one of his first career moves was to make DryDel the first Greek firm to set up an office in Singapore in 2010.
Since then, the Singapore office has operated most of the 5.5m tonnes of cargo handled by the company each year.
Its success has spawned other DryDel offices since 2018 in Dubai, Brazil and most recently in Houston.
One-third of DryDel’s workforce of 83 people works outside its Athens headquarters.
This expansion is business-driven but also partly reflects Greek shipping companies’ difficulty in finding and recruiting suitable personnel at home.
“I don’t see a great urge amid the new Greek generation to study shipping,” said Delaportas, who in his teenage years spent much of his summer holidays as an intern in his father’s office answering phones, forwarding remittances and visiting dry-dockings.
Manpower shortages, however, are not the biggest challenge the industry faces.
Geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty weighs at least as heavily on the Greek owner’s mind.
In Delaportas’ view, alternative fuels are still not mature enough to consider investing in anything else than modern, conventionally fuelled vessels.
Any form of carbon pricing would favour newer ships, he said, however, FuelEU regulations, carbon allowance policies and Bimco’s standard contract clauses remain too vague, creating friction between charterers and shipowners.
“Bimco clauses need to be more user-friendly and easier to implement,” he said.
He believes a much simpler approach would be to mandate slow steaming and phase out vessels older than 25 years from first-tier flags and classification societies.
DryDel successfully sold off nearly all its older vessels through four lucrative asset plays in 2024. Built between 2010 and 2018, these ships were considered aged by Delaportas’ standards.
“I can’t believe there are 1998-built panamaxes still trading out there,” he said.(Copyright)
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