Dry bulk shipping has entered the final quarter of 2026 in considerably better shape than most owners expected, with industry leaders at last week's Splash Singapore conference arguing that increasingly fragmented trade could keep vessel demand elevated even without spectacular growth in cargo volumes.

G2 Ocean chief executive Arthur English admitted the strength of the market had surprised him, particularly in minor bulks, where underlying tonnes have barely grown.

"All of the growth has come from geopolitical disruptions and delays in ports and so on," English told the Dry Bulk Market Outlook panel.

Norden chief executive Jan Rindbo sees something more structural developing. "The world fleet is breaking down into smaller fleets," he said, pointing to sanctions, Middle Eastern conflicts and European environmental rules that now determine which ships can participate in individual trades. The result is declining fleet efficiency.

"We used to trade as one efficient global fleet," Rindbo said. "It just means that the world fleet utilisation is coming down."

Pacific Basin chief Martin Fruergaard similarly highlighted the surprising resilience of the world economy despite inflation, high energy prices and geopolitical turmoil. Chinese steel exports, growing developing economies and repeated supply-chain disruptions have all altered trading patterns.

"It's really a mess up there," Fruergaard said. "But the economy still continues to actually grow."

Cargo owners are reinforcing that fragmentation by deliberately redesigning supply chains. Rindbo said customers are multi-sourcing commodities and reducing dependence on individual countries, creating more complicated trading patterns.

"Shipping is becoming more complex, and that is a good thing," he said.

Orderbook discipline

The executives were considerably less alarmed about the dry bulk orderbook than by the contracting boom elsewhere in shipping. Rindbo described the orderbook as "pretty modest", particularly compared with tankers, although long delivery dates make investments harder to justify. Norden has more than 30 newbuildings coming across its businesses but now favours modern secondhand dry tonnage over fresh orders.

"We are moving exposure capital from tankers to dry," he said. "The risk-reward on dry is actually pretty attractive."

For Pacific Basin, handysize supply also looks manageable. Fruergaard put the orderbook at around 8% of the fleet, while approximately 14% to 15% of existing ships are already more than 20 years old. A large portion of today's ageing fleet was built during the 2009-12 Chinese ordering boom, and Fruergaard questioned how long some of those ships will remain commercially viable.

At the larger end, Seanergy Maritime and United Maritime chairman Stamatis Tsantanis offered an even more bullish calculation. Around 400 capesizes are currently on order, he said, while approximately 900 existing vessels will turn 20 or older during the next four years. Yards, meanwhile, are increasingly occupied with large containership and tanker programmes.

"There's absolutely no way you can put a new slot of a capesize or a newcastlemax before, at best, December of '29 or first half of 2030," Tsantanis said.

He nevertheless warned that dormant shipyards returning to the market were beginning to resemble the run-up to shipping's last great ordering bust. "It's like zombies coming back from the dead," he said. "That kind of reminds [me of] the period between 2007 and 2010."

Tonne-miles over tonnes

Demand arguments extend well beyond traditional iron ore. Tsantanis expects Guinea's growing Simandou exports to generate a substantial tonne-mile boost as Chinese steelmakers take more long-haul African ore, while some Australian material could increasingly be redirected towards India.

"The tonne-mile effect over the next three or four years once Simandou gets more mature will be tremendous," he predicted.

Rindbo highlighted bauxite as another increasingly important capesize cargo, while arguing that commodities required for electrification and artificial intelligence could prove particularly significant for smaller bulkers. Copper concentrates, nickel, manganese and other materials needed for data centres, batteries and the green transition generally travel in smaller parcels.

"A lot of the commodities of the future are actually going to be transported on smaller vessels," he pointed out.

Even Baltic Exchange chief executive Mark Jackson is seeing the market's geography change, with demand for new benchmarks and greater transparency increasing around India and West Africa as cargo flows evolve.

The mood was consequently bullish, though not without warnings over expensive assets and the familiar temptation to over-order. Asked at the end of the session whether today's dry bulk market offered greater upside or downside risk, Rindbo gave perhaps the simplest summary of the panel's stance.

"Well, we are buying ships," he said, "so I guess I have to say that there's more upside."

Splash Singapore returns to the Fairmont Hotel on September 23, while next year's Geneva Dry, the world's premier commodities conference, is scheduled for April 27 and 28 at the Hotel President Wilson.