Hellenic Shipping News reported that in today's adverse shipping market conditions, the critical for the limiting of tonnage supply demolition activity seems to be slowing down after a scrapping frenzy from November and until today. With the global economy at its knees, shipping must rely at its own strengths for some time, in order to see itself through without many casualties. That said, all involved parties are doing what’s necessary to take tonnage off the market, whether that’s done by ship lay ups, new building cancellations or the scrapping of older tonnage.
But, as the market managed to cover some of its losses, posting a small rally from the beginning of the year, some owners appear reluctant to keep the current of ships headed for demolition. In fact market sources indicated that as the ships were heading towards scrap yards, some owners were actually turning them around and back into the market, buoyed by the positive market sentiment. As a result the wave of scrap deals seems to be diminishing. Nevertheless, an important progress has been made in that field.
According to figures compiled by Drewry Shipping, global dry bulk scrapping activity amounted at 2.485 million DWT of capacity during January. That’s the highest monthly number from at least 2006. It surpassed a previous record set in November of 2008 when more than 2 million of DWT was sold for scrap.
According to George Moundreas’ weekly report, the flow of tonnage sold for scrap during the previous week amounted at 207,000 DWT for dry bulk carriers and 128,000 DWT for general cargo vessels, which is about 40% of the weekly average of the previous months and 50% for bulkers and general cargo respectively.
Meanwhile, prices seem to be picking up, at least throughout the Indian sub continent. Bangladesh is leading the way both for wet and dry tonnage and outperforming India and Pakistan. For tankers Bangladesh is paying around USD 315 per tonne, some USD 15 to USD 25 over India and Pakistan respectively. For dry bulkers Bangladesh is at around USD 275 per ton slightly higher than the USD 265 to USD 270 being paid in India.
(Sourced from www.hellenicshippingnews.com)
