GMS report on shipbreaking industry for WEEK 39 of 2012:

It was a tale of two markets this week as India pushed on back to levels of a few months ago whilst Bangladesh sat in the doldrums unable to compete or even offer on any market tonnage.

The Indian resurgence can be largely attributed to an improving currency (against the US Dollar), which ironically, about the same time last year, suffered terribly when the Rupee began to depreciate catastrophic ally to historic lows with local buyers losing 20% of the value of their purchases during this time as a result. Notwithstanding, recent gains have offered some hope to Buyers in India that previous losses could be recovered and many have started to emerge to the buying table once again, keen to take on tonnage, albeit, still with a hint of cautiousness to their levels.

The Pakistan market, as usual, has sensed this shift and duly followed suit with their offerings, picking up one or two well positioned larger vessels as a result amidst the dearth of their favored tankers gas free for man entry only.

Meanwhile, it was the Bangladeshi market that was really proving to be the thorn in the side of a majority of the cash buyers with simply no sensible levels emerging there for any types of tonnage being offered. Many vessels had been diverted away from Chittagong shores in recent weeks and it is still proving an incredibly difficult task to bring any firm buyers to the table whilst the market remains swamped with tonnage (both waiting to come in and already stuffed onto the end buyers yards).

China took a deserved breather this week with the onset of the national October 2012 holidays. Many in the industry are hoping that Chinese chop shops come back to the bidding with renewed vigor and aggression to buy and help alleviate the pressure on Bangladesh. Finally, Turkey suffered a massive drop in levels of its own with prices now well below USD 300 per tonne for dry tonnage.

For week 39 of 2012, GMS demo rankings for the week are as below:

Country	Sentiment Market	GEN CARGO Prices	TANKER Prices
India	Bullish	USD395/ltldt	USD420/ltldt
Pakistan	Bullish	USD390/ltldt	USD415/ltldt
Bangladesh	Weak	USD375/ltldt	USD400/ltldt
China	Bullish	USD300/ltldt	USD320/ltldt

Source: steelguru (Source - GMS Weekly) 4 October 2012

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