The Chinese company recorded a sharp decline in net profit in the first nine months of 2025 (-42.81%)
Shanghai – China Merchants Energy Shipping (Cmes), one of the main global players in energy and bulk transportation, closed the third quarter and the first nine months of 2025 with financial results sharply down compared to the previous year. The unaudited data, released by the company, highlight how the shipping sector is facing a phase of freight rate normalization, particularly for tankers, after the exceptionally high levels recorded in 2024. In the first nine months of 2025, the company’s cumulative operating revenue fell by 14.77% year-on-year, settling at 4.27 billion yuan (approximately 588 million dollars). The most significant figure concerns the net profit attributable to shareholders, which recorded a contraction of 42.81%, stopping at 947.1 million yuan. Cmes attributed this decrease mainly to lower operating revenue and a reduction in gains from the disposal of assets, results that had positively characterized the previous year.
Considering only the third quarter, operating revenue showed a slight increase of 1.10% (1.50 billion yuan), but the net profit attributable to shareholders still decreased by 13.47% to 376.9 million yuan. The weakness of the results, particularly in comparison with the previous year, is linked to market dynamics: although international tanker freight rates showed a certain sequential recovery in the third quarter of 2025, they remain significantly lower than the 2024 peaks. Demand in the product tanker market and the chemical tanker market, in particular, proved weaker. Despite the unfavorable market context, Cmes, which is part of the China Merchants Group, emphasized that it is continuing its share buyback program, having repurchased 75 million shares by the end of September, in an attempt to support the share value.
