The secondhand bulker market continues the plain performance in the last half month and the secondhand ship price index for different bulkers sees further mild declines.
With the gradual recovery of coastal shipping market, enquiries for bulkers have been more active and mainly focus on 2,000-5,500dwt bulkers. It is reported that a 3,000dwt bulker carrier (2005 blt) was transacted at $571k. Some owners are enquiring about 10,000dwt bulkers.
The large-scale momentum in ship industry has pushed more buyers to purchase big ships. Some buyers even ink Handysize bulker for domestic services. And the performance of big vessel s in shipping market is a little better that that of small ones. Therefore, some owners are considering 30,000-40,000dwt bulkers which would be operated on South East Asia routes with flag of convenience.
Five-year 5,000dwt bulkers are relatively popular in secondhand market and the prices are still low. However, insiders predict the price decline will not go long. The bigger ones, such as three-year 16,500dwt and 22,500dwt, are now in a dilemma and face poor conditions on entering the market.
The secondhand tanker market is more active than bulker sector, especially small bunker tankers. It is said that more and more buyers are using 3,000 tankers or bigger ones for bunkering and a 3,000dwt tanker (2006 blt) is traded at $1.59m. Besides, some buyers are looking for 1,000dwt tanker with heating facility.
Chinese government has recently increased fuel prices for the second time in the last two months, but the terminal demand for product oil is still on rise and even further activates product oil shipping.
Besides, with the ship become larger and larger, the supporting bunker tankers and oily water treatment vessels is likely to brace a bright future.
In this period, container shipping freight rate has continued the increase trend with few liner giants jointing hand to raise the rates.
Engineering ships S&P market is pretty active in the last half month and few cutter suction dredgers were reported to be transacted.
The short-time rebounding in shipping market has not mobilized owners’ and investors’ interest in newbuilding market. The new orders basically keep the same level as the first half month.
The demand for steel sees modest recovery and thus drives the steel plates prices and scrapping rates.