Ten months have passed through 2007 and Hellenic shipping companies continued their newbuilding spree in October, according to the latest data provided by local shipbroker George Moundreas & Associates SA. Figures for October have shown that 11 companies have placed orders for 35 vessels, with a total carrying capacity of 1,971,500-dwt. They represent an investment of $2.23 billion, which brings the total amount of money spent on shipyards around the world to $28 billion, translated into 479 ships of all types. This remarkable evolution has occurred without taking into account the remaining two months of the year, when more contracts currently under negotiation are expected to be sealed.
As previously mentioned by Hellenic Shipping News, records are constantly broken in today's market conditions. Thus, for the whole of 2006, which was also a record-year, a total of 322 vessels were ordered for about $16.64 billion. As one can easily observe, this record has been smashed almost from June of 2007. The orderbook currently under contract only for 2007 represents about 13% of the Hellenic-owned fleet, which stood at 3,669 vessels as of February, according to official statistics provided by Greek Shipowners Cooperation Committee, based in London.
Nevertheless, during the past month, the newbuilding activity was a bit slower than in September. According to Moundreas this can be attributed to the lack of berths, the price increases as well as some turbulences observed in the freight market, which brought up the question ''Until when?'', regarding the dry bulk market boom. Of course, part of the blame can be put upon the subprime loan crisis, which affected Europe as well and increased costs.
In terms of vessels ordered during October, chemical tankers continued to be the sole interest observed in the wet side of the market, while once again bulk carriers were the leading force with 21 ships being ordered, while this time around it was the supramax and post panamax types that took the lead.
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