Turkey’s Ciner Shipping Industry & Trading, which had been expanding via newbuildings, is to make its first move in the sale-and-purchase market for secondhand vessels.
Ship management and broking sources in Turkey and Singapore identified the Istanbul-based outfit as the buyer of the 180,000-dwt Stella Nora and Stella Naomi (both built 2016) at $44m each.
A deal could also extend to a third ship managed by Singapore-based Cara Shipping, the 180,000-dwt Stella Hope (built 2016).
The Stella Nora and Stella Naomi are expected to be delivered to their new owners in mid-October. Both were built at China’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, passed special surveys this summer and have a ballast water treatment systems installed.
Clarksons on 3 September estimated the average price for a five-year-old capesize at $45m.
Ciner is understood to have secured long-term, index-linked employment for the vessels with the RWE Group. The German energy giant has already fixed two capesizes in the Ciner fleet, the 180,000-dwt Vittoria and Mehmed Fatih (both built 2015).
The Istanbul-based company had ordered both its existing capesizes as newbuildings, in line with the standard policy it applies to its tankers and boxships.
Ciner is not the only company to have started looking for secondhand ships, seeking to benefit from a red-hot dry bulk freight market that seems to support steadily climbing ship values.
The capesize S&P market had been relatively muted in recent months compared with that for smaller ships, which had been stealing the limelight.
But that changed in August as capesize earnings pierced the $50,000-per-day mark in the spot market.
That performance fuelled another asset price rally in bulkers, on top of an average 50% increase between January and May, analysts at Athens-based Seaborne Shipbrokers wrote on 30 August.
Moundreas buys two capesizes
Fearing further potential price increases, several shipping players may feel that it is “buy now or regret it later”, Seaborne said.
One player that certainly seems to think that way is Greece's Nicholas Moundreas family, which bought two capesizes that are somewhat older than those acquired by Ciner.
In a first deal last month, the Piraeus-based player spent $33.75m on the 181,400-dwt Frontier Phoenix (built 2011).
According to market sources in Athens, the same buyer is also behind a separate, $28m deal that includes an ongoing time charter for the 176,000-dwt DS Charme (built 2011). The Chinese-built ship had been previously controlled by Germany's Dr Peters, from which the Moundreas group has bought several tankers in recent years.
Further evidence of climbing capesize values is provided by a deal TradeWinds reported about in early August and which involved a separate pair of Cara Shipping capesizes.
Even though direct comparisons are tricky to make, given that ongoing time charters were part of the arrangement, Cara Shipping disposed of the 179,500-dwt Stella Laura and the 179,700-dwt Stella Lucy (both built 2015), possibly to Greece’s George Economou, for $36.5m and $38m, respectively.
Managers at Cara Shipping, which is the Singapore-based shipping unit of China’s Rizhao Steel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Irene Ang contributed to this article
