Owners kept being active in the second hand purchasing market, in a quest to find attractive deals before the year ends. In today’s market conditions, one owner’s loss is another one’s gain and vice versa. With ship financing growing scarcer and scarcer, ship owners are actively looking to offload vessels and improve their balance sheets, while others who enjoy sufficient liquidity are looking to lower the average purchasing cost of their fleet, through attractive deals in the second hand ship purchasing market.
Hellenic Shipping News has gathered three separate shipbrokers’ reports on the second hand markets this past week. According to Intermodal’s report, “we witnessed some slight activity this week, despite the Christmas holiday festivities. On the Tankers side, most notable was the reported enbloc sale of the Pacific Oasis” (47,999dwt-blt 04 Japan) and “Pacific Polaris” (47,999dwt-blt 04 Japan) which went to undisclosed buyers for a price of $ 23.0m each, both including balance of timecharter to Hanjin till August 2014 at a rate of $ 13,500 per day. While on the dry bulker of interest was the sale of the vintage Panamax ‘Sd Epos’ (68,634dwt-blt 87 Japan) which went to Chinese buyers for a reported price of around $ 5.7m” said Intermodal.
Similarly, Shiptrade Services, another Piraeus-based shipbroker said that shipping activity went to decline further. As a matter of fact a limited number of deals were reported at significantly softer prices. There was a significant decline in Shiptrade’s enquiry index which can be explained in view of the Christmas spirit. In the dry sector Handies and Handymaxes have been in the spotlight whilst the tanker activity was at extremely low levels. Enquiries for MR and Aframaxes consisted of the majority. Hanjin is reported to have sold its Capesize vessel M/V “Frontier” (151,492 built in 1992 in Daewoo, KRS) to Greek buyers for USD 7,5 Mill. Handy M/V “Baltic Frontier” (27,293 DWT built in 1992 in Minami, JPN) is reported sold for USD 8 Mill to Greek buyers. In the tanker sector activity was extremely low with the most significant being Dynacom’s M/T “Equator” (149,997 DWT built in 2006 in Universal, JPN) sale for USD 44 Mill to undisclosed buyers. On the other hand, Cido is reported to have sold its MR duo M/T “Pacific Polaris” / “Pacific Oasis” (47,999 DWT built in 2004 in Iwagi, JPN) enbloc for USD 23 Mill each including a TC at 13,500 p/d to undisclosed buyers” said Shiptrade Services.
Finally, Golden Destinty, in its own report said that during the course of the past week, “overall, 21 vessels reported to have changed hands this week at a total invested capital in the region of US$ 341.54 mil, one transaction reported at an undisclosed sale price. With bulk carriers and tankers being the protagonists by grasping 86% of the S&P activity. In the dry segment, modern and vintage tonnage of all sizes is on the spotlight and in the tanker segment small vessel sizes, MR, are still very attractive. In terms of the reported number of transactions, the S&P activity is up by 40% from last week’s activity, and down by 4.7% comparable with previous year’s weekly S&P activity when 22 vessels induced buyers’ interest at a total invested capital of about $368 mil with bulk carriers and tankers grasping 55% of the total volume of S&P activity. In terms of invested capital, the tanker sector appears as the most overweight segment by attracting about 71% of the total amount of money invested due to the enbloc sale of four panamax units of about 73,000dwt built 2004-2006 at a total price of $147,9 million” concluded Golden Destiny.
When it comes to demolition activity, Intermodal said that “the market continued to hold a pessimistic view despite the Christmas festivities. The Indian market is still suffering from currency problems and dropping commodity prices, which has caused decreased buying interest amongst breakers. Things in Bangladesh didn't help either, adding to the uncertainty and causing buyers to take a more precautious approach. All this has left demo prices in the Indian Sub Continent to once again hold from any increases. Chinese breakers, on the other hand, have taken this opportunity to once again narrow the price gap and secure a bigger portion of the available tonnage. Offered Prices as such have held fairly stable, with wet tonnages being offered levels of about 445-485$/ldt and dry units seeing prices of around 425-455$/ldt” said Intermodal.