S & P 

This week has seen a noticeable slow down in S+P activity.

In the panamax sector, the M/V GOLDEN GLORY (70,296 dwt 1996 blt Sanoyas) reported sold to undisclosed buyers at US$ 9.5m.

In the Tanker S+P market, the aframax M/T DIAMOND CHAMP (107,198 dwt 2003 blt Imabari) is sold on private terms to Tanker Pacific while the 5years older Vietnam-owned M/T QVM SUCCESS (105,162 dwt 1998 blt Samsung) is sold to Greek buyers at US$ 11m.

NEWBUILDING  

Even in the middle of the summer holidays we are still seeing a trickle of orders being placed at yards. This week we have seen the Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer, take some time out from his ambitious Titanic II project, to order something a little more mainstream in the dry sector to support the ore import activities of his wholly owned Queensland Nickel Group, in addition to these orders we have also seen some activity in the products space.

Overall however, yards are still struggling to attract any significant new orders and in many cases yards forward order books are diminishing rapidly to levels not seen for many years and as such many yards will spend the summer holiday period trying to come up with innovative ways to fill the empty spaces. Many will no doubt hope to find respite in some of the more niche markets such as offshore and gas, however even in these relatively buoyant sectors competition remains fierce and the numbers of new orders actually available is limited when compared to the size of the dry, wet and container fleets. The one silver lining for yards that have been successful in the offshore and gas sectors, is that the relatively high value of the orders should at least offset some of the pain from the lack of numbers of units actually ordered, but ultimately yards still face a sobering second half of the year!

In terms of reported business in Dry, clients of Asia Pacific Shipping Enterprises are reported to have placed an order at Jinling shipyard for 4 x 64,000dwt supramaxes for delivery commencing 2014. Clients of Polaris Shipping are reported to have placed an order at STX Dalian Shipyard for a 207,000 dwt Newcastlemax basis delivery September 2014. Buyers are also understood to have retained a further option at the yard which if declared would deliver in December 2014.

On the wet side, clients of D'Amico have reportedly placed orders at Hyundai Mipo for 2 option 2 x 40,000dwt product carriers basis for delivery in 1st quarter 2014.