Demand for secondhand vessels, in terms of enquiries, seems to be on a high at the start of 2022, even if this isn’t currently translated to more S&P deals concluded. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal noted that “while it is logical that most of the S&P reports of the first weeks of the year are linked to very limited activity as reflected in the weekly tables with the concluded deals in the DRY market – a phenomenon common in the first months of the year characterized by low seasonality – there is another indicator that would be in our opinion more representative of the trends to prevail in relation to the activity in dry S&P. This indicator is the intensity of the movements/interest one notices before the completion of a deal by potential buyers. And while the number of deals is easily quantified in numbers in the context of a table, the above-mentioned indicator is a qualitative/empirical one, possibly entailing a greater weight on the trend that will follow in numbers”.

Source: Intermodal

According to Mr. Nassos Soulakis, SnP Broker with Intermodal, “more specifically, during the last few weeks, we have observed a gradual rise in buying interest that translates both into new purchase enquiries and reactivation of older ones that had come to a halt in the last months of the year. This activity, in no way, comes close to the one we experienced in September/October 2021, but it is a satisfactory basis to hint an increase in buying and selling soon after the freight market stabilizes and starts to show direction following the Chinese New Year and more so after the Winter Olympics. This will help to reduce the gap that has been created between the prices offered by buyers and demanded by sellers, which has so far kept benchmark values resilient despite the freight market slump. The course of the deals will surely be reinforced by any new ships for sale that usually enter the market after CNY mainly from the Japanese market. Also, let’s not forget that this year, ships built in 2007 and 2012, with 2007 being the beginning and 2012 the peak of the wave of newbuildings deliveries in dry, reach 15 and 10 years respectively with what this entails for their special survey dates and the current policy of fleet renewal by shipowners, so increased circulation of assets of this age bracket is likely to be observed”.

Soulakis added that “as far as tankers are concerned, the relative stability to lackluster freight levels prevailing in the freight market has extended the buying window in the sector and helps so that increased buying interest translates into more deals compared to dry, since the parts of the transactions – buyers and sellers – enter the negotiating table having a smaller gap to fill. It is worth mentioning that among those interested in tankers, there are dry bulk players who either want to enter the sector for the first time or return and diversify their assets to take advantage of cyclicality, so a possible difficulty of completing deals in dry – at least for the immediate future – can turn them more decisively towards tankers”, Intermodal’s analyst concluded.

Marex Media