GMS weekly report on shipbreaking industry for WEEK 4, 2011

As the Indian market continues to impress, despite tails in the opening days of the week, competing markets were left trailing in their wake.

Steel prices, along with other non ferrous materials such as copper, coupled with demand and capacity remained strong across the board and that is leading to decent prices on a seemingly endless supply of tonnage.

For the most part, the early part of the year has seen the majority of vessels sold on the dry bulk front, but the last week saw owners of different types such as containers and reefers cashing in on booming levels.

Pakistan, still there for the tankers and the largest vessels on offer, failed to secure any market units, although word was rife that one keen buyer had committed to the 56,000 LDT FPSO MAXUS WIDURI (despite earlier whispers she had been flipped on to Eastern storage interests by the relevant cash buyer).

Bangladesh remains closed with little hope of any further progress being made towards a reopening in January and several Chinese yards remain open to take the right (usually large LDT) units at the traditionally big levels available before the start of Chinese New year holidays next week.

As the first month of 2011 comes to a close, cash buyer speculation has reached unprecedented levels. Some would say those that continue to buy at strong levels on an as is basis are gambling, but the fundamentals remain strong and the Bangladesh buyers remain desperate to buy, with all concerned trying their utmost to find solutions in order to facilitate a market reopening.

Source: SteelGuru. Tuesday, 25 Jan 2011

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