Newbuilding Orders and S&P Deals Moderate Ahead of New Year

The newbuilding and S&P markets have started to ease back ahead of the holiday festivities and the New Year. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied said that “new ordering activity in the dry bulk market resumed back to moderate pace, as only one fresh deal emerged this past week (an order of 2 capesize units from Greek interests). Newbuilding activity has remained at modest levels throughout this year, relative to the robust freight earnings and the strong sentiment from owners. The elevated newbuilding prices, the concerns over feeding a future oversupply and the preference by shipbuilders for other ship types (i.e. containership, gas carriers etc.) seem to have all been major factors in limiting newbuilding projects in the sector, a trend that is likely to spill over onto the new year. At the same time, there was no reported newbuilding activity in the tanker sector for yet another week. This lack of interest came without surprise, as fundamentals in the market, despite a slight improvement, are still considered as poor. The activity in the coming months is expected to be closely linked to the pace of recovery seen in the market. Finally, there were some fresh projects emerging in the containership and gas sectors, which have been fairly active throughout 2021”.

In a separate note this week, Banchero Costa added that “in the container market, Sea Consortium placed an order for a potential 16 units abt 1,170 teu (8+8 optional) to be shared equally between New Dayang and Xinle.

Vessels to be delivered starting from 2023 upto 2025. In Japan JMU shipyard received an order for two Newcastlemaxes (abt 182k dwt) basis delivery 2H 2023 and 1H 2024 from Samos Steamship”.

Meanwhile, in the S&P market, Allied said that “on the dry bulk side, we witnessed a relatively modest flow in fresh transactions coming to light, with overall activity though being volatile as of late. It is true that the recent sharp negative orbit in returns has somehow derailed the prolonged emphatic SnP activity, widening at the same time the bid –ask spread in the market. Hopefully, with the freight market already being on a recovery path, we can expect many deals being pushed forward in the near term. On the tanker side, it was a rather uninspiring week, given the relatively mediocre number of units changing hands as of late. We have argued repeatedly that a more robust trend from the side of earnings is needed, before any form of stability and robust trend returns. Notwithstanding this, given the general recovery mode of a period now, we may well expect a positive sentiment to be sustained for the remaining part of the year (at least), both in terms of volume and asset price levels”.

Banchero Costa added that “in the dry bulk sector, Five Ocean South Korea are reported to be the buyers for M/v Cape Treasure, 180,000 dwt blt 2007 Koyo, at USD 22 mln. The sale is based on SS/DD due Feb 2022. The Kamsarmax M/v King Barley, 82,000 dwt blt 2012 Tsuneishi Zhoushan, has been reported sold to Blumenthal at USD 22.7 mln based on SS/DD due Jan 2022. Gearbulk is back with the purchase of 2 x 63.000 dwt Ultras blt 2015 Dayang, the M/v Star Elios and Star Artemis, at USD 52.5 enbloc.

In the tanker sector, quite a few Stainless Steel chemical tankers have been reported sold: M/t Mid Falcon 20,000 dwt blt Fukuoka and sister Mid Osprey reported sold to undisclosed buyers at USD 12 mln per unit. M/t Shamrock Mercury 19,000 dwt blt 2010 Usuki St/St reported sold to undisclosed buyers at USD 16 mln based t/c to Ultrabulk at high USD 13,000 per day”, the shipbroker concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide