Drewry: Scrapping to Rise as Bulk Owners Suffer

Drewry’s latest Dry Bulk Forecaster report suggests that cash-strapped shipowners will scrap younger and younger ships this year as the dry bulk market wallows in the doldrums. A ship as young as 15 years has already been sold for scrap in recent months, and the average scrapping age of Chinese-built Capesizes was 21 years in 2012.

Drewry does not expect any improvement in the freight market in 2013 and foresees a growing number of dry bulk shipping companies getting into financial difficulty. Demolitions in 2013 are expected to be above 36 million dwt, more than what was seen in 2012, and the average scrapping age will fall even further as middle-aged vessels struggle to find employment.

The average scrapping age of the smallest segment, Handysize, will fall below the 30-year mark in 2013, having dropped from 32.4 to 30.1 years last year. This sector lost a bigger proportion of its fleet to the scrapper’s torch in 2012, driven by increasing obsolescence as ports expand. Similarly, demolitions in the Panamax segment were also relatively high, given its older age profile and the increasing popularity of the larger and younger post-Panamax design.

Demolition reached record levels in 2012 as freight rates slumped to their lowest level for a quarter of a century. Preliminary data suggests that as much as 32.7 million dwt of dry bulk tonnage was sold for demolition, with the fourth quarter amounting to 6.8 million dwt: more than double what it was in the last quarter of 2011. Nearly 11 million tonnes of Capesize tonnage was sent for scrap, which was more than the all the dry bulk tonnage scrapped in 2009.

But even this frantic level of scrapping will not push freight rates up because the dry bulk fleet is growing even faster. It added 35 million dwt last year to reach 679 million dwt (9,490 vessels), which was a 12.3% expansion, following 15.2% in 2011. While ‘only’ 28 million dwt is due for delivery this year, two-thirds of that increase will come in the post-Panamax and VLOC segments. These fleets are already very young, so there is very little chance that scrapping will ease the pressure on freight rates.