Most of the shipping industry’s investment activity can be seen in the dry bulk second hand market these days, as the current market environment looks like moving sand and as such, few ship owners are willing to tie down their liquidity in favor of a long-term bet, such as a newbuilding order, no matter how low the price. In its latest weekly report, Allied Shipbroking noted on the newbuilding market that “prices remain stagnant for yet another week, as little going on in the industry has managed to leave a positive effect on the newbuilding market. Orders are still coming in at an excruciating slow pace, with interest still focused on the tanker sector, given the uninspiring freight rate performance noted in the other sectors as well as the still significant discounts being seen in the secondhand market. Nevertheless there is a bit of shopping around being seen, though with available finance having dried up and not showing any indication of re-emerging soon it seems unlikely that we will see any new orders coming in in great numbers”.
In a separate note, exclusive to Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide (www.hellenicshippingnews.com), ships’ valuation experts VesselsValue noted that in the S&P market this past week, in the dry bulk side, “Capesize values have remained stable over the past week. The en bloc deal of the K Endeavor, K Adventure (179,000 DWT, 2011, Sungdong) and the K Ambition (179,000 DWT, 2012, Sungdong) sold by SK shipping to Seanergy Maritime Corp for USD 66 mil, VV value USD 66.4 mil. Within the Panamax sector, the Mangan Trader 1, 2 and 3 (84,000 DWT, 2013, Hyundai Samho Heavy Ind) sold by Nisshin Shipping to Transmed Shipping for USD 15.5 mil each. These vessels were originally TMT orders which are over Kamsarmax length and have high speed and consumption. Therefore, they do not represent true panamax values.
Older tonnage has firmed in value due to the sale of the Capetan Tassos (75,100 DWT, 2000, Hitachi) sold for USD 4.5 mil, VV value USD 4.18 mil. One Handymax bulker the Marianthi (48,100 DWT, 2003, Oshima) sold for USD 5.5 mil. VV value USD 5.4 mil, firming values. 4 Handy sales have taken place this week, causing a firming in newer tonnage. The sale of the Palermo (32,800 DWT, 2010, Yangzhou Wanlong Shipbuilding Co) sold for USD 6 mil, VV value USD 5.77 mil. The en bloc deal of Maple Pearl & Maple Harmony (23,000 DWT, 2009 & 2010, Taizhou Maple Leaf Shipbuilding) sold for USD 8 mil en bloc, VV value USD 6.82 mil en bloc”, said VV.
On the S&P market as well, Allied said this week that “we had a flurry of activity with significant deals being seen in the larger sizes as well. In the meantime there seems to be a build up of pressure on prices to rise further, with buyers’ confidence improving significantly given the state of the freight market and the view shared by most that things should start to improve overall within the next year. Having said that, not much of this has materialized yet in terms of actual deals reported in the market. On the tanker side, we where back to minimal activity as the softer price levels being seen by most sellers do not exactly inspire confidence in any decision to sale right now. At the same time the freight market has also improved considerably from its summer levels, giving owners further reason to delay any sale decision for the time being. That’s not to say that buying interest has evaporated, but it just seems as though there aren’t buyers out the willing to push their price ideas to be inline with the ideas shared by current sellers”, the shipbroker concluded.
Meanwhile, in the demolition market, Allied noted that “it seems as though the market has started to role back into normality after a shaky couple of weeks following the major accident in Gadani. At the same time we have seen some further confidence emerge in the area in terms of pricing as the effects of the U.S. election on commodity prices has played its role here as well. This has helped keep prices relatively buoyant, although some small losses have been noted due to the decreased competition seen amongst buyers this past week. This does provide some confidence moving forward though the rally in commodity prices has subsided since then and with the U.S. dollar still gaining strength we might well see some slight downward corrections. On the positive side the number of candidates has been kept subdued, with the dry bulkers having seen fair improvements in their freight rates causing the temporary aversion for beaching any large number of units right now”.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide
