A Few Surprise Sales This Week in Ship Recycling

Ship recycling has again been quiet across the ship recycling globe, reports cash buyer GMS.

“Moreover, as an increasing number of vessels past beached have been nearly recycled, and barely any meaningful arrivals have been reported at the respective waterfronts (zero in India this week), frustrated industry players are just … going with the depressive flow,” states GMS.

“With that being said and reportedly this week, amidst a sea of floating oldies several high-priced sales were surprisingly confirmed to the various markets (essentially Bangladesh and Pakistan), further raising eyebrows and likely giving everyone the (misdirected) impression that levels are on the up again.”

The shortage of supply may be further driving prices up to tempt owners even more, amidst this excruciating tonnage famine and address head on, the extremely bleak few quarters of minimal activity and a subsequently pessimistic outlook for the ship recycling industry overall.

In dry bulk, container shipping and general cargo, freight rates have been performing well so far this year.

Even India seems to be finding partial form once again, with some unexpected offers being tabled on the bare minimum number of available candidates, states GMS. “These offers are of course, well behind a firmer Pakistan and even firmer Bangladeshi market. But it is good to finally see signs of life here, as most in Alang are anxiously awaiting the election results, in the event a market catastrophe befalls the country’s economy on account of a Modi government’s re-election loss.”

Globally, all recycling nation currencies remarkably posted positive movements this week – including Turkey, where the Lira actually firmed at the close of the week. Having been subject to a tumultuous time, could the economies of nations dependent on ship recycling now be finding stable footing at long last? Time will certainly tell.

For week 14 of 2024, GMS demo rankings are: