A stronger dry cargo market helped Dag von Appen’s Ultrabulk bounce back into the black in 2018 and the Chilean shipowner is confident of a brighter 2019 for its overall Danish shipping business.

Ultrabulk banked a profit of $15.5m last year, flipping a loss of $2.4m in 2017, according to details released by the private company this week.

Per Lange, chief executive of Ultrabulk, told TradeWinds: “We are happy about the results and after a couple of meager years we are able to give the shareholders some return on their investment."