Around 25% of the 250m dwt dry bulk orderbook is still made up of “phantom orders” that had “slipped out of the back door” and will never be delivered, according to a leading Norwegian broker.
Of the current orderbook scheduled for delivery over the next four years, Fearnleys Consultants director Sverre Bjørn Svenning predicted just 180m dwt-190m dwt will enter service, which was “still bad enough when you already have high fleet growth”.
Mr Svenning said, “These phantom orders have been resold as new orders. Once the order’s International Maritime Organization vessel identification number has been allocated, it cannot be deleted; it just eventually changes from ordered to dead.”
He made reference to the 200 ships that had already been contracted in 2011 for delivery by mid-2012, and 30m dwt ordered last year for delivery in 2011, leaving an average lead time from contract signing, designing, building, trialling and delivering of 14 months.
“There’s no way that’s ever going to be possible for a brand new order. Maybe a Japanese company like NYK or MOL going to a Japanese yard could manage it — but not in China, where the majority of ships are ordered,” Mr Svenning said.
Adding to the theory that some orders had simply disappeared, he reminded the audience there were still 1,000 bulkers ordered in 2007 and 2008 that have still not entered service, four or five years on.
Golden Ocean chief executive Herman Billung agreed the dry bulk orderbook had been overstated for a long time, as did RS Platou managing partner Richard Fulford-Smith, who added yards were still desperate to fill building slots.
“For every newbuilding enquiry we have, there are a handful of yards than can build it. There is simply too much shipbuilding capacity and that temptation is out there,” Mr Fulford-Smith said.