The newbuilding market has seen its fair share of activity, despite the Holiday season. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “activity in the new building market was healthy last week with a couple of orders being materializing just before the close of the 2022 contracting book. Japanese owners Hisafuku Kisen and Kasuga Shipping each ordered one 40,000dwt bulk carrier at Hakodate Shipyard for a price in the region of $32.3m each. Omani Group Asyad Shipping concluded a deal for the construction of two firm plus two optional LNG 174,000cbm units at Hyundai Samho, for a price of $254.5m each and with delivery taking place in 2026. Lastly, Japanese owner Toyofuji Shipping, inked a deal with Mitsubishi Hi for two 3,000ceu LNG fuelled PCTC vessels for an undisclosed price”.
In a similar note, Allied Shipbroking commented that “rather disconnected to the typical lull during the Christmas/New Year holiday period, the newbuilding market prevailed fairly fervent as of late, underlying the general buying appetite that follows this market for some time now. More in detail, the year will close with some sort of glimpse of optimism for the dry bulk sector, with some new projects coming to light, albeit being concentrated towards the smaller size segment at this point.
Moreover, given the slight pressure in newbuilding prices of late, it may well result in more attractive levels for potential investors in the near term. Notwithstanding this, we have to see a prolonged bearish freight market regime and slack in new order activity, before quoted price levels drop significantly. For the tanker sector, another relatively interesting week took place, in line with the euphoric state noted in terms of freight earnings. Given the current momentum noted in the market, we can expect a “good” start to take shape for the New Year, especially in terms of activity”.
Meanwhile, in the S&P Market, Allied said that “amidst the festive period, SnP activity was mostly subdued. In the dry bulk sector, we’ve seen a focus on the Supramax sector, with the majority of vessels changing hands averaging at about 55,000dwt. The rest of the transactions came from the Handysize segment. The average age of vessels sold was around 13 years of age, a small increase comparted to last week.
Despite a small uptick in Capesize rates, we’ve not yet seen a reflection of it in terms of buying interest. In the tanker sector, things remained active, mostly for the smaller size segments. More than half the vessels bought and sold came from the Aframax segment, which along with the Suezmax are the two most benefited by the recent market ruckus around Russia’s crude transport. The rest of the vessels were product tankers. The age of vessels sold held at more vintage levels, averaging at 15 years of age”, the shipbroker concluded.
Intermodal also noted that “with only a handful of deals being materialized in the SnP realm, we assume that the owner’s focus is on holiday break while given the uncertainty that prevails across both tanker and dry bulk markets we could see the volume of SnP deals remaining restrained during the first weeks of 2023. In the tanker sector, we had the sale of the “CRESCENT MOON” (150,581dwt-blt ‘04, Japan), which was sold to undisclosed buyers, for a price in the region of $33.5m. On the dry bulker side sector, we had the sale of the “AQUAHOPE” (177,173dwt-blt ‘07, Japan), which was sold to Turkish buyers, for a price in the region of mid $18.0m”.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News
