MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company has sold yet another of its oldest container ships.
The recycling sale of the 2,394-teu MSC Nilgun (built 1994) comes within two weeks of the most prolific buyer of secondhand container ships acquiring the 3,586-teu AS Nadia (built 2007) and 1,496-teu AS Ragna (built 2009) from MPC Container Ships
The MSC Nilgun, which was beached upon arrival at Alang in India on 26 April, was sold to an MSC-approved green recycling facility for a reported $565 per ldt, or $7.1m in total.
The price, well in excess of the $530 per ldt that cash buyer GMS reports as the current offering price out of India, is said to reflect the ship being delivered with a full load of valuable spare parts and 320 tonnes of bunkers on board.
MSC has emerged as the most prolific recycler of container ships, even though it has yet to open the demolition floodgates.
The MSC Nilgun deal is the fifth recycling deal the company has concluded this year. In 2023, it sold 17 vessels from its operated fleet with a capacity of 51,000 teu, according to Alphaliner.
MSC is closely watched in the recycling market after buying more than 300 mostly secondhand vessels in the past three years.
The Geneva-based giant has a long-running fleet strategy of owning both new and older container ships to allow it the flexibility of trimming capacity in tough markets by recycling the oldest ships while still profiting from their residual scrap values.
Any decision to send a major chunk of its fleet to the breakers could mark the bottom of the cycle, analysts believe.
However, despite the recent regular disposals, the number of ships it has recycled is but a small fraction of its overall fleet strength, which VesselsValue estimates to be in the region of 430 owned ships.
Market sources believe the MSC Nilgun, and others recycled before it, were sold as part of MSC’s fleet replacement programme because they had reached the 30-year mark, the usual age at which the company disposes of its older tonnage.
Container ship recycling has remained at low levels this year because of increased demand for tonnage due to geopolitical events such as the Red Sea crisis, as well as the very small number of feeder-size newbuilding deliveries.
The only other container recycling deal reported over the past week involved Chinese owner Ji Zhou Shipping’s 585-teu Ji Yuan (built 1994), which was sold to cash buyers on an as-is Singapore basis for an undisclosed price.
According to Singapore-based Star Asia Shipbroking, the Ji Yuan will be recycled in Bangladesh, where pricing levels for feeder container tonnage is reported to be in the region of $560 per ldt.
