Some supramax owners are taking the opportunity to exit the sector or set fleet renewals in motion as asset prices jump.
Winning Shipping took advantage of rising prices to withdraw from the segment, selling off its only two supramax vessels.
The Singapore-based bulker owner did not respond to a request for comment about reports the company had offloaded the 58,000-dwt sisterships Winning Angel and Winning Bright (both built 2012) for $14.2m each.
However, market sources in Athens and London insisted that a sale had taken place and that interests linked to dedicated supramax player AM Nomikos had picked up both ships.
Built at Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering, the ships are equipped with ballast water treatment systems and passed special survey last year.
This is a rare sale for Winning Shipping. The company usually holds its ships — almost all of them capesizes and newcastlemaxes — until they are ripe for the scrap yard.
Supramaxes were the odd ones out in the company’s fleet of about 40 bulkers, so surging freight rates and asset values made it an easy choice to part with them.
The Baltic Exchange’s benchmark supramax index climbed to a 10-year-high of 2,017 points on Monday, almost twice as high as at the beginning of the year and 179% above its level on the same day of 2020.
Asset values have been rising in tandem. The average three-month trend price for a 10-year-old supramax jumped to $13.5m in the week to 5 March, its highest level since July 2019, according to Clarksons.
Busy week
Buoyant market conditions have spawned other supramax transactions as well, mostly involving Greek shipowners keen to offload some of their vintage tonnage.
Polforce Shipping confirmed to TradeWinds that it had agreed to sell its oldest vessel — the 51,000-dwt Papayiannis (built 2001) — to Asian buyers. Brokers in Athens and London said the ship changed hands for about $5.5m.
Samos Steamship reportedly offloaded the 56,100-dwt Mykali (built 2011) to undisclosed Chinese or Greek interests for between $13.5m and $13.8m.
NG Livanos is said to have sold the 56,900-dwt Arietta A (built 2011) to undisclosed buyers at an undisclosed price.
EGPN Bulk Carrier of China appears to have concluded the best deal of all, with the sale of the Jiangsu Hantong-built, 56,000-dwt Eastern Edelweiss (built 2012) for $11.8m.
Clients of the company bought the ship as recently as in June 2020 for just $8.1m from Germany’s Conti group.
EGPN did not respond to a request for comment.
