February marked the slowest month in almost two years, in terms of newbuilding investment by Hellenic ship owners. According to yesterday's report released by shipbroker G.Moundreas & Co., a mere 11 vessels were ordered by a total of three shipping companies, representing an estimated value of $517 million. During the previous months of 2007, an average of 30-35 vessels were ordered. The vessels' aggregate carrying capacity stood at 649,000-dwt. Due to confirmation reasons, the report doesn't include this week's officially announced orders, placed by StealthGas to acquire five new Fully Pressurized (''F.P.'') Handy Size LPG Carriers from a shipyard in Japan, three of which are 5,000 cbm and two are 7,500 cbm. Delivery of the 5,000 cbm vessels is expected at the end of September and November 2010 and the end of March 2011, respectively. Delivery of the 7,500 cbm vessels is expected at the end of July and December 2011, respectively.
This slow activity shouldn't be alarming, at least for now, since many shipbrokers point out that a number of ship owners are negotiating new orders, while others are lurking for the right opportunity to emerge, since caution is the word at least for the present time.
According to the report this slow activity, at least compared with last year's frenetic pace of newbuilding orders from Hellenic ship owners, can be attributed to a number of reasons, one of which being China's Lunar Year's celebrations, which kept shipyards off work for approximately 10 days. Furthermore, there's been a shortage of available berths at the largest and most popular shipyards around the world, but especially in China, which in turn, translates to deliveries being pushed back for the end of 2010, 2011 and in some cases even 2012!.
Of course there is a notable concern on the future prospects of the world's economy after the developments which occurred all these previous months, with the subprime loan crash in the U.S., triggering an almost worldwide credit crunch. This in turn has prompted some analysts to debate on whether we will see newbuilding orders cancelled, due to lack of financing. In some cases, this has already been observed, but for the moment is an isolated phenomenon. For the moment though, global economy, which after all, is directly linked to shipping, remains on a positive trend, since it is mainly fuelled by BRIC countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China, whose economies continue to be booming, albeit at a slower pace against the past. Nevertheless, the constantly rising steel prices have prompted shipyards to be quite hesitant, when it comes to commiting berths for long periods of time.
Besides, StealthGas, companies contracting new vessels included Laskaridis Group, which ordered one 75,000-dwt bulk carrier for $49 million, with a scheduled delivery on 2010. The shipyard selected was Penglai. Allied has gone to Jiangdong to contract six bulk carriers of 57,000-dwt for a price of $46 million each, representing a total investment of $276 million.
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