Long-time stock market-lister Eagle Bulk Shipping [EGLE] is reporting a record profit for the second quarter of the year with any EBITDA of US$ 62.7m in Q2-2021, dwarfing the US$ 9.7m secured in the same quarter of 2020. According to Eagle’s newly published earnings report, total revenue rose to US$ 129.8m in the quarter—up from US$ 57.3m a year before—with profit of US$ 9.2m for Q2 vs. a loss of US$ 20.4m in Q2-2020. The bulker company says that it has already fixed 75% of its open ship days for Q3-2021 at TCE rates in excess of US$ 28,000 daily. CEO Gary Vogel said Eagle maintains an “optimistic outlook” for market developments in the rest of the year.

If joining a shipping pool signals hard times, leaving one may indicate the opposite. Golden Ocean now says it plans to exit Capesize Chartering, a profit-sharing scheme with CTM, Bocimar and Star Bulk Carriers. The joint venture, started in 2016, was intended to coordinate spot chartering services in the Capesize market. But with dry bulk freights now climbing to record highs, the losses of participating in a pool may start to outweigh the gains. This appears to be the belief of Golden Ocean, which in a statement said it now thinks that it can secure “the benefits of scale outside of the joint venture.”

It has been another positive week for listed bulker firms with the likes of Navios Maritime Partners [NMM], Diana Shipping [DSX] and Golden Ocean [GOGL] seeing their prices increase by 7.2%, 3.8% and 3.1% over the week to US$ 23.7, US$ 4.3 and US$ 9.98.

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