Beijing: In response to the new ship scrapping policy issued by the Ministry of Transport at the end of 2013, Chinese shipping companies have started a new round of fleet update plans.
China COSCO Holdings announced that it has chosen 41 ships to be scrapped during 2014. Total capacity of the ships is 2.52m dwt. The decision comes after a series of new orders placed by the company lately.
In the meantime, China Shipping Development announced that it will scrap 7 vessels, made up of 2 bulkers and 5 oil tankers totaling 294,000dwt.
“Most of the old vessels are small tonnage vessels and have high fuel cost, but it requires additional cost to scrap them, so the shipping companies just suspended the operation of these ships before the new ship scrapping policy was released, now the companies are more willing to scrap ships and order new ships with the support of subsidies,” an official from China National Shiprecycling Association told SinoShip News. [20/01/14]
