Hong Kong-based Genting Cruise Lines and Dubai's Beacon & Bay Shipping are recycling two cruise ships that have been unable to find trading buyers as the market's appetite for older vessels remains negligible.
Genting, according to well-placed cruise industry sources, is in the process of selling its oldest ship — the 42,300-gt SuperStar Libra (built 1988) — to Turkish ship breakers in a move that will allow it to comply with European Union regulations, which stipulate vessels be sold only to EU-approved yards.
Although owned by an Asian company and registered in the Bahamas, the SuperStar Libra has since 2018 been docked in the German port of Wismar as an accommodation vessel for workers building new cruise ships at Genting HK-owned MV Werften.
The vessel's departure for Aliaga under tow is said to be pending final paperwork and approvals from Germany's State Office for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Geology.
Genting did not immediately respond to a request for comment, however the ship's status in the IHS Ships Register was recently changed to "to be broken up".
Gadani arrival
Dubai-based Beacon & Bay has sold its recently acquired 56,800-gt Antares Experience (built 1993) to cash buyers after failing to find a trading buyer.
Beacon & Bay acquired the vessel from Celestyal Cruises in early September in an attempt to make an asset play gain.
The Dubai-based company actively sought a trading buyer for the ship, which until July 2020 operated as the Costa neoRomantica for Carnival Corp subsidiary Costa Cruises.
Beacon & Bay had been asking in the region of $20m for the ship, which VesselsValue estimates had a market value of $122m prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In late October, a deal with a South Korean company was said to be in the works, while a Chinese company was also said to have expressed interest.
However, IHS indicates that ownership was transferred in November to Maker Shipping, a recently established Marshall Islands-registered company that has briefly owned two other vessels, both drill ships, that were subsequently scrapped.
Ship recycling sources claimed on Tuesday that the Antares Experience had arrived off Gadani Beach in Pakistan after lingering in the Arabian Sea for several days while offers from Pakistani and Indian ship recyclers were being considered.
The Antares Experience is the first cruise ship sold to Pakistan since P&O Cruises scrapped the 49,100-gt Canberra (built 1961) there in 1997.
The pandemic has resulted in 28 cruise ships totalling 1.17m gt being sold for recycling.
