With the secondhand asset value declining and ship financing shrinking in the period, traditional secondhand ship transactions has seen further weakness. On the contrary, the S&P activities of offshore plants are on the rise recently.
According to Clarkson, totally 72 offshore plants were changed hands in the first half of 2012, over 20% up year on year and 25 more than the 119 total in 2011 annually. Seventeen platform supply vessels (PSV) smaller than 3,000dwt were transacted in the period while the average trading level for previous few years is about 12 vessels.
In the first six months, ten 8,000BHP and bigger AHTS were reported changing hands, rising by 18% against the same period of last year. Besides, about eight large PSV and 12 small and medium AHTS were transacted, growing by 14% and 4% respectively. As for big PSV, the average transaction volume for last few years is about 14 vessels every year.