A steady rally in the dry bulk market this year hasn’t been translated to a similar case in terms of newbuiding ordering activity, although orders have certainly rebounded to healthier levels. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “despite the intense activity in most of the Far Eastern shipyards, dry bulk projects continue being scarce, even though freight earnings have reached decade record levels during the year. Investors’ prior experience in excessive ordering and the respective effects in the market have somehow limited interest for newbuilding investments, though the main obstacle right now seems to be the overall lack in interest from shipbuilders. The strong buying appetite for new orders in the containership and gas carrier sectors, which can offer much higher margins to shipyards have put the dry bulk sector in the back seat for the time being. At the same time, the lack of interest noted in the tanker market comes as little surprise, given the persistent poor market fundamentals it has been facing for such a long time period. Interest amongst buyers is not expected to return just yet for newbuilding projects, with only hopes of a strong rebound in the freight market leaving the possibility for any new activity to emerge. However, it is worth mentioning that an impressive order for 7 shuttle tankers from Rosneft was reported this past week, showing that the oil markets (albeit for offshore production) are still attracting new infrastructure investments”.

Banchero Costa noted this week that “in the container market four feeder abt 2,900 teu were ordered by Bangladeshi contractor at Fujian Mawei basis deliveries starting from September 2023. Furthermore Cido Shipping agreed with Hyundai Samho for the construction of 2 x 15,000 teu.

Vessel to be LNG dual fuel and delivery during 1st half of 2024. Further series of the previous order Olderdorff Carriers placed six additional(firm and optional) Kamsarmax at Jiangsu New Hantong for delivery in 2023/24. Japanese owner Mitsui OSK added a LNG carrier (abt 173k cum) at Daewoo basis delivery 2024 and price to be around $197.6 mln. Three Newcastlemax originally contracted by Rio Tinto during beginning of this year has been re sold to JP Morgan at $75 mln each”.

Meanwhile, in the S&P market, shipbroker Allied said that “on the dry bulk side, it was another interesting week in terms of activity taking place. During the past few days, there was some sort of return to normality for the SnP market, with the overall volume being mostly supported by the medium to smaller size segment. It seems that the relatively quick correction in freight rates for the bigger size segment has somehow derailed the recent spike in terms of transactions.

Notwithstanding this, as we progress into the final quarter of the year and with sentiment remaining firm, we can expect a strong SnP market to hold across all size segments. On the tanker side, sales activity continued once again on a modest tone. Rather atypically, recent transactions were nourished mostly by the bigger size segment, given the firm en bloc deal seen for 6 VL units basis a BBB agreement with the Sellers. Thinking also about the steady improvement in freight rates as of late, we could expect a more interesting SnP market to take shape in the near term”.

In a separate note, Banchero Costa added that “dry bulk market prices are getting stronger on W-o-W basis. Kamsarmax ‘SEACON SHANGHAI’ 82,000 dwt 2019 Huangpu, China with BWTS fitted has achieved a very firm $38 mln from undisclosed buyers. Ultramax ‘KANOURA’ 61,000 dwt 2013 Iwagi, Japan with BWTS fitted has been sold to Greek buyers for $28.4 mln. Interestingly, ‘SAILING SKY’ 61,000 dwt 2014 Shin Kasado has achieved $27.2 mln ”only” 1 month ago. With both units giving c/free delivery in Nov-Dec”, the shipbroker concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide