Khalid Hashim, the managing director of Thai dry bulk concern Precious Shipping, is well known for speaking his mind in a forthright, erudite manner. 

In conversation with Maritime CEO, he pulls no punches while discussing the markets, and most pertinently, the events coming out of Caracas over the weekend that have subsequently led the coverage on Splash all this week. 

Hashim hits out at the media coverage of the capture and detention by US special forces of Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. 

“Today,” he goes on to say, “economics trumps everything else, and war is the default option, not diplomacy, which it should be.” 

Comparing the situation to the Gaza war, Hashim maintains that once impunity is provided to the perpetrators, they get emboldened to commit even more egregious crimes as they are never held to account. 

“If that happens, then 2026 will be filled with similar or worse events,” Hashim predicts, citing Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Greenland as potential US targets.

Quizzed on the shipping markets, Hashim voices concern about ongoing so-called sticky inflation, as well as the fact that too many in shipping are overly bullish on prospects for 2026. 

“At every conference, every seminar, every meeting within the shipping community in the last few months, we hear everyone singing from the same sheet – ‘the freight market is going to do very well in 2026!’ That would be, at least for us, a cautionary red flag when you have unanimity in describing the prospects of the dry bulk shipping markets,” Hashim cautions. 

Caveat aside, Hashim reckons the major economies of the US, EU, and China will all fare better in 2026 than they did in 2025. 

The bad news from Hashim’s perspective is that inflation has refused to go lower than 3% for two whole years, and economists he rates think that sticky inflation is here to stay so long as there is no recession. As a result, Hashim reckons interest rates will continue to dip.

On the demand side, the biggest mover in dry bulk according to Hashim is what is being described as the “Pilbara killer”, the Simandou iron ore mines of Guinea, where round trips to China on giant newcastlemaxes are more than three times more tonne miles intensive than from Australia.

“Once the bigger ships start getting tied up in the Guinea cargoes, their rates will shoot up so much so that the cape cargoes will be split into kamsarmax sizes, thereby pulling up the kamsarmax rates, and that will positively impact the rates for the ultras and supras, and then flow down into the handy sizes, too,” Hashim predicts.

Hashim, born in 1953, has headed up Precious since 1994. From a prominent shipping family—his father chaired the Indian National Shipowners Association, and his great-grandfather helped found Scindia Steam Navigation. Hashim’s career began in 1978 at Tolani Shipping in Mumbai.

Of late, Precious’s priorities have been to sell older vessels, replacing them with larger, younger, and eco/electronic-engined ships.