The sale and purchase market has seen volumes shrink much further this past week. The distressed container and bulk shipping markets are making owners consider warm lay-ups of their vessels in order to cut expenditure.
According to Alibra’s latest report, it has been another negative week for the capesize period market and it continues to move lower with little hope of improvement in the near future. Capes are now trading for little more than $2,000 a day, hovering around the all-time lows experienced in 2016. The kamsarmax/panamax sector also saw a disappointing week in the Atlantic that continued to experience reduced demand, while the smaller sizes show very little improvement and rates have struggled.
Intermodal reported that Norwegian owner Maritime Opportunities sold its 2010-Chinese-built 56,800 dwt supramax bulker Endeavour Strait. The vessel is believed to have been sold to US-owner Safesea Group for an undisclosed price. VesselsValue’s valuation of the vessel is $8.64m.
Advanced Shipping & Trading, Lorentzen & Stemoco, and Banchero Costa all reported the sale of the 2008-Japanese-built 56,000 dwt supramax bulker Royal Epic. The vessel was sold by Japanese owner Tokei Kaiun to Indonesian buyers for $7.8m.
“SnP activity appears to have slowed down considerably in the past days, while as interest for tanker candidates remains healthy, we expect that the sector will see more deals being confirmed in the coming days,” Intermodal said in its weekly report.
Intermodal and Lorentzen & Stemoco reported the sale of the 2001 South Korean-built 36,000 dwt MR tanker Prem. The vessel was sold by Indian owner Machtrans Ship Management to undisclosed interests for a price of $6m. VesselsValue data shows Machtrans just bought the vessel from Mercator in a bank sale for $3.6m in January.
The secondhand containership sale and purchase continues to be quiet this week.
“Activity on sale & purchase market continued in a similar vein, despite a respectable number of buyers monitoring the market the pool of Buyers willing to actually move now is very small. As asset values re-adjust, we expect buyers to be tempted in greater numbers,” Braemar ACM Shipbroking said in its latest weekly report.
