It was a bad day for shares of Golar LNG and Scorpio Bulkers for different reasons that may or may not be directly connected with coronavirus outbreak.

They were the big losers on a Tuesday that saw mixed results for US-listed shipping equities and a broader market that fell to a fractional loss after giving up a 973-point gain, continuing the recent wild run of volatility.

Golar got bad news when BP declared force majeure on the FLNG Gimi project off the coast of Mauritania, claiming it cannot take delivery as scheduled in 2022 and estimating a one-year delay, which it attributed to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Golar fell $1.47, or 24%, to $4.63.

Veteran Evercore ISI analyst Jonathan Chappell reduced his sum-of-the-part valuation of Golar to $12 from $23, writing:

"The use of COVID-19 as an excuse for force majeure, delays, and cancellations of projects is a bad precedent for the entire industry. We still forecast that this project will move forward, just now in 2023, but we have lowered the multiple investors are willing to pay for these cash flow streams across GLNG’s entire upstream and downstream portfolio as even the strongest of counterparties are substantially weakened."

Scorpio Bulkers carried out a previously announced one-for-10 reverse shares split and immediately got punished by investors, who sent the share down 11% from a post-split price of $21.41 to $19.01.

It was the largest loss of the dry buk peers, topping Genco Shipping & Trading's 9% fall, Diana Shipping's 5% and Star Bulk's 2%.

In the containership sector, Costamare and Danaos Corp both logged 5% gains, with Global Ship Lease up 4%.

Tankers largely failed to build on Monday's solid gains as the market awaits the results of an Opec meeting scheduled for Thursday. Investors are looking for clarity as to whether there will be an end to the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, and production cuts of 10m barrels or more.

Losses came from Tsakos Energy Navigation and Navios Maritime Acquisition (both 6%), International Seaways and Diamond S Shipping (both 5%) and Frontline (3%).

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude fell nearly 6% to $24.56 and Brent Crude 1% to $32.56 as oil major ExxonMobil said it will slash capital spending by $10bn, primarily in production in Texas' Permian basin.