Dry cargo players are closely watching to see if the long wait for a capesize sale will be ended this week, potentially opening the door for an acceleration in deals and establishing a clear new benchmark on price.
No capesize has been sold for further trading this year, with data from VesselsValue showing the wait since the last deal in December has been unprecedented.
Expectation among brokers has been for Sanko Steamship’s 177,500 Euro Fortune (built 2005) to be the ship to break the drought and the uncertainty over values.
Offers on the ship are understood to have come in at around the $12m mark, however, counter offers have yet to arrive at the time of writing.
“Japanese sellers are not agreeing to as many offers as they were previously,” one respected sale and purchase broker told TradeWinds.
“They would have been hoping for something closer to $13m…It is what it is.”
The ship is the only capesize in the Sanko fleet today.
The company has just sold one of its two panamaxes the 76,600-dwt Ocean Wind (built 2006) and last week inked a scrubber-fitted kamsarmax newbuilding at a Japanese shipyard.
While liquidity has been lacking from the capezize sale and purchase market, weak rates and soft sentiment have led to brokers marking down their paper prices.
VesselsValue figures show a generic 15-year-old capesize today is worth a little over $12m. This is down by one fifth from the start of November last year.
Clarksons has marked down the price of a non-eco, five-year-old capesize by 9% to $31m during the past three months.
It prices a 15-year-old capesize at $14.5m, down marginally from $15m at the turn of the year.
Brokers say a sale of the Euro Fortune should assist in opening up the market again by establishing a firm price figure.
Ten or more capesizes are being circulated in market and owners and potential bidders for those ships are following the Sanko deal for guidance, brokers say.
