In Hellenic Shipping News 05/03/2015
Newbuilding ordering activity has slowed down considerably on the back of the crisis in the dry bulk market, but also the expectation among many ship owners, that shipyards will keep on discounting their prices as the weeks go by, a trend already evident. In its latest report , shipbroker Intermodal noted that, “with just a handful of orders surfacing last week, it goes without saying that things in the newbuilding front remain awfully quiet, while prices are still on a downward slope and as we have stressed a few times already, we do not expect any positive corrections during the first half of the year”.
Intermodal added that “in terms of last week’s reported activity, the trend of converting previous non-tanker orders to tanker ones, seems to be gaining more and more momentum. Indeed, both tanker orders coming to light last week were conversions of older newbuilding projects, with South Korean Dong-A Tankers, converting an older Capesize order to two LR2s and two Aframaxes and compatriot Sinokor, also opting for a conversion of an earlier LNG order to four VLCCs. Apart from the popularity of the tanker sector nowadays, this trend is also signalling the very weak fundamentals of the newbuilding market overall, as even in the tanker sector, where things are considerably rosier compared to other sectors, freshly inked newbuilding orders are still scarce and a big part of today’s activity is being sourced from past activity. In terms of recently reported deals, Taiwanese owner, Wisdom Marine Lines, has placed an order for one firm Handysize (37,000dwt) at Onomichi, in Japan, for a price of $ 22.0m and delivery set in 2017″, Intermodal concluded.
In a separate report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “with interest still minimal for new orders in the Dry Bulk market, rumored prices (rumored as there is an overall lack of actual reported deals) on offer took a further tumble . With lacking demand there, it is only logical that there would be an after effect on the other shipping sectors as well, as they are the ones which will be called upon to fill up the gap and sustain the shipbuilders’ orderbooks. This coupled with the fact that sectors such as that of tankers and gas carriers have seen a notable increase in secondhand asset prices, should compel inter-ested parties to take up the newbuilding route. Yet it will be hard to mobilize enough interest to satisfy all the shipbuilding capacity avail-able out there. It seems as though it will be yet another year of lean management and cutting of excess “fat” as shipyards try to keep their balance sheets in the black and hold enough orders in their books to last them well into 2017. In terms of marketing , we yet to see compe-tition intensify, although many could be waiting for the freight market to turn first and show more promising direction for the future, before heavily pushing their open slots”, Allied noted.
Finally, Clarksons Hellas noted that it was “another relatively quiet week in the newbuilding market, with just one order to report in Tankers. Dong-A Tanker in Korea are reported to have converted their 180,000 DWT Capesize Bulkers at Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries to four 115,000 DWT Aframax / LRII Tankers. These vessels are scheduled to be delivered throughout 2016 and 2017. It marks another series of conversion from Dry to Tankers after Sinokor Merchant Marine were reported to have converted an order for four 180,000 DWT Capesize bulkers at Daehan Shipbuilding in Korea to 114,000 DWT LRII Product Tankers and to have placed a further order for two firm plus four optional units at the same yard earlier this month. There are no other new orders to report in other sectors”, the shipbroker concluded.
