A colorful week of highs and lows characterized the international ship recycling markets with almost all major competing markets reaching parity, being only a few dollars apart.
The deciding factor for vessels now will be their last port of discharge / geographic location since there is not one single market that is (notably) outperforming the others. Indeed, one particular capesize vessel in North China achieved a price that many would consider above even that of the Indian sub-continent market today
Yet, just as cash buyers and owners began to see some sort of pattern emerging, the early signs of stability in India began to show through on the one side, as the Chinese market reversed itself shoving early signs of possibly weakening on the other.
One certain theme of die past few weeks amidst this most recent reversal in prices has been the vast array of renegotiations witnessed across the board in all markets. Indeed several vessels are STILL waiting for delivery in Bangladesh, having arrived OVER two months ago (amidst ongoing disputes / finance — LC issues).
With 100 vessels having arrived and beached in India over October — November, it is likely to be an overall quieter month (or two) ahead of digestion and reflection with die onus on competing sub-continent markets to pick up the slack once again. With the number of units sold for recycling this year set to comfortably breach the 1,000 mark and prices still on die upper end of impressive, owners can rest be assured that going into the new year, there will be a taker (or two) for their older units at decent levels once die time has come to say goodbye.
As die Christmas holiday season approaches then and many in the industry look to simply balance the books, we do not expect die final month of die year to produce too many fireworks with capacity at a premium and most end buyers firmly in pick and choose mode.