GMS weekly report on shipbreaking industry for WEEK 46 of 2011:

Ø    Turmoil persists

Ø    Bangladesh still absent

Ø    No ideas on levels

Ø    China- only bright spot

LACKING LEVELS!

Another week of declines and tails beset the Indian sub continent market leaving a majority of the Cash Buyers nearly clueless as to where levels actually stand today. Yet, we continue to see some who speculate, a massive risk given the trends of the past several weeks

With many vessels facing some kind of trouble viz end buyer renegotiations or rejections of vessels, the credentials of Cash Buyers that owners have committed to, really come under the microscope in these most testing of times. Given the present conditions, several sales may be needed in order to peg exactly where levels are, but for the time being, it is turning rather impossible to say with any real confidence, exactly what price any type of vessel is.

The continued absence of Bangladesh has not done the market any favors, their capacity to buy big and in bulk could relieve some of the pressures on both Pakistan and India.

Gadani buyers too saw no reason to lead the line on their own and consequently decided to cool off from their buying activities/reduced prices as well, simply echoing the sentiment in India.

Meanwhile, as currency woes persisted in India, many end buyers simply chose to remove themselves from the bidding tables, not prepared to offer at all. This meant that the usual cash buyer tendency to fix back to back during a falling market, was severely hampered as no price ideas or even guidance from local buyers (from the subcontinent) was being given.

As a result, with levels all over the board i.e. prices continuing to fall from within the subcontinent on the one hand and healthy speculative offers on part of some of the Cash Buyers on the other, showed where prices should clearly not be. This has resulted in a blank slate for the pricing table below, a possible first in the history of the GMS Weekly.

The only bright spot for the week was the return to some sort of form from the Chinese market, where iron ore prices rose. This had a knock on effect to the price of steel and demo prices therefore the local recycling industry witnessed an improvement of about USD 20/LT LDT to finish the week as levels headed nearer to the 400/LT LDT mark, up from the 350/LT LDT seen last week.

For week 46 of 2011, GMS demo rankings for the week are as below:

Country	Market Sentiment	Gen Cargo Prices	Tanker Prices
Pakistan	Cautious	-	-
India	Weak	-	-
China	Weak	USD 380/lt ldt	USD 400/lt ldt
Bangladesh	Weak	N/A	N/A

Source: Hellenic Shipping News (Sourced from GMS Weekly). 22 October 2011

http://hiweb.blob.core.windows.net/hellenicshippingnewsbody/pdf/November%2018,%202011.pdf

http://www.steelguru.com/international_news/GMS_weekly_report_on_ship_breaking_industry_for_WEEK_46/237039.html