The much anticipated budget of February 28th (the first full budget since
Mr Modi has taken charge) seems to have brought with it, very little of
material concern to the ship recycling sector.
More time will be needed to mull over the details, as end users can only
be sure of their fate on Monday once the finer print has been studied. However,
a cursory review appears to show no significant increases on taxes to the
ship-recycling sector, but conversely, no new duties on any freshly imported
Chinese billets seem to have been imposed so far.
As such, this is largely positive news for the industry, with steel
prices having increased by as much as USD 10 to USD 15 per LDT recently and the
currency trading in and around a healthy INR 61 against the US Dollar over the
course of the last few weeks.
The worst of the damage appears to be over (for the time being) and end
buyers seem encouraged enough to return to the bargaining table in search of
fresh tonnage, with which to stock their plots and try to cancel out the
disastrous high-priced purchases of 2014.
Several market sales were therefore recorded with the general cargo
vessel TOBOL (4,108 LDT) from Far East Russian owners SASCO committed for a
modest USD 345 per LT LDT (the vessel was built in Poland and had a steel
propeller both significant negatives). In contrast, the handymax bulker UMANG
(8,830 LDT) was sold for a very decent USD 391 per LT LDT with the 500 T
bunkers adding about 17 USD per LDT of value.
Source: steel guru. 3 March 2015
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