Resilience, accountability, agility: the case for small independent dry bulk operators

Resilience, accountability, agility: the case for small independent dry bulk operators

The recent Geneva Dry conference saw shipowners converge in huge numbers to listen to panels on many matters of interest to the market across two days.

Among them, the risk management workshop raised interesting points about operational risk in dry bulk shipping. However, the characterisation by some of the speakers of smaller owners as inherently riskier or problematic – and predictions of their imminent demise – overlooks the essential role they play in today’s fragmented, performance-driven market. 

At Sagitta Marine, we believe operational scale is no substitute for operational discipline. In particular we work to counter the false equivalency between smaller company size and higher risk.

The assertion that smaller owners or operators are automatically higher risk than larger ones ignores the reality that risk is a function of governance, transparency and operational rigour, not the dwt under management.