Danish shipping company D/S Torm nearly quadrupled its nine-month pretax profit and raised its full-year guidance on Thursday, amid rising freight rates as demand for shipping transport surged. Pretax profit rose 276 percent to 1.76 billion from 468 million one year earlier. Torm's two main divisions are its tanker and dry bulk businesses, accounting for 57 percent and 43 percent of group turnover respectively in the nine-month period.
The company's tank division was boosted by very high freight rates as a normal seasonal lull in rates did not take full effect this year, it said.
Growth in the global economy and very low inventories of refined oil products due to high oil prices and limited growth in refinery capacity in the western world led to strong demand for transportation of refined oil products, Torm said.
Torm's dry bulk unit saw a more volatile market trend in the period. Bulk market freight rates were affected by the slowdown in the Chinese economy as well as a significant inventory build-up in the first quarter, leading to lower imports in the period.