The newbuilding ordering activity has been more than quite during the course of the past week, as a result of holidays in both Korea and China. According to the latest report from Clarkson Hellas, the biggest order to be reported was from clients of CIMC, who are the listed Chinese leasing company and the largest container manufacturer in the world. "Now tha further details have become apparent, we can report that they have placed a series of ten South Americamax 9,300 TEU Vessels, with the order being split six at Dalian Shipyard (DSIC) and four at STX Dalian. It is reported that the order will be for circa USD low 80 Mills per Vessel and delivery from 2H 2014, with all the Vessels being on long term charter to CMA CGM. It is interesting that STX Dalian have been able to win some of this business, as we believed it would very much be domestic Chinese Yards that were able to be considered for this project being backed by this Chinese leasing company, however this shows STX’s further expansion into the larger container shipbuilding sector in their Chinese facility. Whilst CIMC already have the aforementioned exposure into the physical box side of the business, this will be their first foray into Ship Owning" Clarkson Hellas said.
It added that "we have now seen the global container orderbook reduce to now be only circa 500 ships on order and more importantly to just below the psychological level of less than 10% of the existing fleet on the water. Of these five hundred or so ships still left to deliver, more than 350 of these are in the larger postpanamax sector. It is interesting to compare this to the Tanker sector where we now see an almost comparable set of figures, where across the product and crude sectors only 9.8% of the existing fleet is now on the current orderbook. The dry orderbook across all sectors still has 20% of the existing fleet on order, however this is now well down on the 27% we saw as we entered 2012. In terms of other reported business an unknown Marshall Islands based owner has placed an order for a brace of cargo/passenger ships worth a combined USD 16 Mill at the Japanese Yard Kegoya Dock KK, with delivery set for the end of 2013" the report concluded.
Meanwhile, in the demolition sector this past week, shipbroker Lion Hellas reported that ", Pakistan and Bangladesh markets are stable however rates in India are increased by $10–$15 more since than last week. Subcontinent’s demo-rates are ranging between $380-$410 for bulkers, $415-$430 for tankers & $410-$420 for container vessels. Despite the holiday week in China, Chinese Market has firmed paying $300-$320, on the other hand bad times for the Turkish market that has weakened paying $280-$290 for bulkers and $300-$305 for containers & tankers" the company said. Clarkson Hellas added that " Whilst a quiet week has been experienced, mainly due to the seasonal holidays in the Far East, actual sales activity has continued in a rich vein as some Owners try to benefit from the recent spike in rates evident from India. The Indian rupee gained some strength this week against the U.S. Dollar to nearly a six‐month high of 51.41 rupees against the dollar on strong capital inflows and a firming trend in the equity market which resulted in buyers speculating on the forward market. Owners who were in a position to sell their tonnage benefited from this continued enthusiasm from the buyers and as such, achieved levels some USD 15‐20 per ldt higher than recent weeks. The problem is, as we all know, that the currency market is very volatile and many predict this sudden jump to be short lived and some now question as to how long the current positive sentiment remains. With Diwali scheduled for early November, it is hoped that Indian buyers will continue their recent aggressive stance into the foreseeable future.
Bangladesh, despite being away from the current market competition, has seen their local steel market fall again and, together with the local foreign currency issues, the expectation is that we shall not see any major competition from this destination for a month or two at least. Pakistan continues to seek tonnage but for the larger units only and thus, we will see the smaller drycargo units being taken away by their counterparts in India. China was showing some positive signs prior to their annual holiday this week, and therefore it will be interesting to see if this positive trend will continue when the market reopens next week and how the buyer’s attitude is when they return" the report concluded.