In its latest report, shipbroker Intermodal attempted to find a silver lining in the tough year that was 2011, as well as what one could expect from 2012, drawing the conclusion that everything points to China. According Mr. George Lazaridis from Intermodal, “only a week back, China celebrated its 10th anniversary of joining the WTO. During this period its GDP growth set new records and a country whose GDP in 1995 was on par with the Greek GDP of 2011 (!!!), it propelled itself over this past decade to becoming the second largest economy in the world.

Chen Deming, head of China's Ministry of Commerce, said recently at the eighth WTO Ministerial Conference, that China will become the world's largest importer in 2020 due to its expanding market. This may not be as farfetched as some pundits would claim, as intra-Asian trade has grown exponential over the past decade, while it was China’s internal demand that helped keep most of the Asian markets away from the problems faced in Europe and America since the financial crisis” he said.

He went on to mention that “these days however, the on-going policy of tightening and decreasing external demand, combined with decelerating investment as the fiscal stimulus unwinds, has resulted in China’s GDP growth forecasts to come off by 0,5% to (a still staggering) 9% p.a. With China playing a major role in global seaborne trade, many fear that a slowdown in its growth would immediately translate into a slowdown in demand growth for ships. Though this may turn out to be true, due to the fact that much of its industrial production is heavily reliant on importing of raw materials from far away locations, global tone-mile demand growth for most vessel types may even increase. This is based on the assumption that most of the new demand for raw materials will be covered by areas such as South America, Australia and West Africa. These trade routes carry a much higher tone-mile demand than the average route, meaning that demand for ships may increase at a faster pace than global trade volumes.

Although this may be considered a highly optimistic scenario for many in the Shipping industry, what remains certain is that for yet another year China leads the demand for seaborne trade and as such the shipping market’s prospects are closely tied for the moment to that of Chinese trade developments, for better or for worse” concluded Lazaridis.

Meanwhile, a lot could be done to help the market recover to even healthier levels of freight rates, if ship owners are willing to continue the record pace of demolition activity set during 2011. During the course of the past week, according to Piraeus-based shipbroker’s report, “the scrapping activity has shown signs of firmness this week, while scrap prices are still squeezed downwards with Bangladesh demolition ban being still in effect. The Rupee remains weak against the dollar with scrap buyers offering $465/ldt for dry/general and $495/ldt for wet cargo. Pakistan has narrowed its price gap with Alang cash buyers, but it still struggles to attract vessels for beaching. China has improved its levels by attracting this week dry units at about $400/ldt. Market rumors for a late Bangladesh market upturn do not support a prompt spike in scrap levels; whereas the recent dry euphoria do not stimulate further vessels’ disposals in the capesize segment. In the tanker market, rumors circulated in the market for two more double hull VLCCs, built 1996 and 1998, being sent for disposal by Japanese shipping giant Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL). This decision describes the dire freight market and gives an incentive for other wet operators to follow in similar movements as a step to ease the oversupply pain.

The week ended with 15 vessels reported to have been headed to the scrap yards of total deadweight 1,011,574 tons. In terms of the reported number of transactions, the demolition activity has been marked with a 114% week-on-week increase and regarding the total deadweight sent for scrap there has been a 370% increase. In terms of scrap rates, the highest scrap rate has been achieved this week in the container segment by India for M/V “MSC MAHIMA” with 16,143/ldt at $517/ldt due to decent country built, non ferrous content and vessels equipment with full spares. India has attracted 53% of the total demolition activity with China winning 4 bulk carriers and one liner unit. At a similar week in 2010, demolition activity was down by 53% from the current levels, in terms of the reported number of transactions, 7 vessels had been reported for scrap of total deadweight 575,804 tons with tankers grasping 71.4% of the total number of vessels sent for disposal. India and Pakistan had been offering $440-445/ldt for dry and $475/ldt for wet cargo, while Bangladesh market had been inactive from the demolition scene” concluded Golden Destiny.
Source: Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping