Newbuilding Ordering Activity Shows No Signs of Slowing Down

Ship owners are feeling more confident in terms of contracting more newbuildings, as evidenced by the activity of the past few weeks. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “despite being in the midst the peak period of the Chinese New Year Festivities, which is typically a quieter market point, we experienced a rather modest flow of fresh orders coming to light the past few days or so. From the side of the dry bulk sector, things have slowed downed significantly, with just a single order for 1 option 1 Kamsarmax taking place. Notwithstanding this, and taking into consideration the general improvement in sentiment from the side earnings, we anticipate a fresh wave to emerge soon, further pushing the movement in new ordering in the near term. In the tanker sector, we saw a strong volume take place as of this past week, albeit limited only to the VL size segment. However, given the uninspiring trajectory in terms of freight rates, we expect this trend to subside fairly quickly. Finally, with the other main sectors such as containerships and gas carriers remaining relatively active, we may well experience a more stable track in the newbuilding market for the coming months.

In a separate note, shipbroker Banchero Costa said this week that “the Containership orderbook keeps growing with more ULCC contracts being placed, the majority of them backed by long term charter commitments from MSC. Seaspan International entered the segment with 2 x 24.000 teu at New Yangzijiang for a price of about USD 150 mln each for delivery in 2022 and 2023. Chinese CDBL chosen the same yard for 2 units of the same size. In the MR segment Japanese owner Sumitomo confirms an order for 2 x 51k dwt MR2 for delivery in 2022 whilst Chinese Owners Nanjing Tanker selected domestic yard GSI for the construction of four MR2 for delivery from June 2022.

In the dry sector a few orders emerged, predominately for NACKS built tonnage. Greek Owner Niovis came to light as the contractor behind 2 Ultramax for delivery in 2022, no price emerged. Another Greek owner, Evanlend, booked at the same yard 1+1 Kamsarmax for delivery in 2023. Navibulgar extended their order at Yangzijiang for laker fitted handy BC bringing the order to total 6 units of 31.800 dwt”.

Meanwhile, in the S&P market this week, Allied said that “on the dry bulk side, activity continued on a “good” momentum for yet another week, despite some sort of slowdown noted on a w-o-w basis. This seemed though rather inline with the pause seen in the freight market right now. During the past week, we saw appetite “skewed” slightly towards the Supramax size segment, given the robust number of transactions coming to light. Hopefully, the negative pressure that has already emerged in the bigger sizes won’t have a prolonged effect on the current vivid SnP market. On the tankers side, overall activity was sustained at rather modest levels during the past few days. Thinking about the excessive pressure in freight returns for many months now, the SnP market seems to be struggling to gain a more stable footing. At this point, we see a relatively attuned distribution in transactions across the different sizes. All-in-all, a lot will depend on how things develop from the side of earnings evolve over the next couple of weeks”, the shipbroker said.

Banchero Costa added that “with the Lunar New Year holidays in China, there’s been a natural slowdown in the Capesize market, but the opposite happened for Supras and Handies. Last week we recorded plenty of sales within drybulk, and generally the trend is very firm. Scorpio Bulkers have sold ‘enbloc’ 5 Ultramaxes (2015 and 2016 blt Chengxi, China) at USD 88 mln – on average USD 17.6 mln each – all with BWTS fitted. Eagle Bulk have purchased ‘enbloc’ 3 Supramaxes (2011 blt Dayang, China) in a structured deal of cash-andshares. The tanker sector, despite persisting of very low rates, has seen several large tanker sales to Buyers based mostly in AG and Far East.

Among others, a few notable sales occurred last week: VLCC ‘Eneos Breeze’ abt 301,000 dwt 2003 IHI was sold to Chinese buyers for 23 mil. Suez ‘Icaria’ abt 165,000 dwt 2003 Hyundai was sold to UAE buyers for USD 16 mln (BWTS fitted). Afra resales ‘FSL Suez’ and ‘FSL Fos’ abt 113,000 dwt 2021 COSCO were sold to GNMTC, Libya at USD 52.5 mln each, with scrubber fitted. Afra ‘Dubai Hope’ 115,000 dwt 2005 and sister ‘Dubai Harmony’ were sold to Castor Maritime at USD 13.6 mln each with balance of T/C attached @ 15,000 USD/d”, the shipbroker concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide