Unbridled container ship demand continues to produce strange effects on the secondhand market for dry bulk carriers.
Athens-based brokers report that Singapore-based owners have paid $22m to buy the 35,000-dwt multipurpose (MPP) vessel Doreen (built 2004).
Market sources speaking to TradeWinds suspect the only reason the Chinese-built vessel secured such a high price is because its new owners intend to use it as a container ship.
“There’s no other explanation,” one observer commented.
Brokers including Clarksons indicate that the Doreen can operate as a feeder vessel with a capacity of about 1,800 teu.
The Doreen belonged to Sunrising International until last summer, when the Chinese company reportedly sold the ship to undisclosed buyers for $12.5m.
A few months later, IHS Markit featured Turkey’s Manta Denizcilik as the Doreen’s new owner.
VesselsValue and MarineTraffic do not clarify the vessel’s current ownership but they have been listing it under a new name, Alpaslan Oba, which is pointing towards Turkish control as well.
Refit, repurpose, resell
The supply of independently owned container ships has been dwindling as major liner companies, such as Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), are buying them by the bushel on the secondhand market and fixing whatever is left on multi-year periods.
In order to increase supply a little, small bulkers have been used or retrofitted to carry containers.
TradeWinds has been reporting since last summer how owners of small handysize bulkers and MPP vessels are modifying them to cash in on sky-rocketing box rates.
In one example, Oslo Bulk sold three 20-year-old MPP ships at impressive prices last year, all to buyers who intend to use them to carry containers.
It is not known what modifications or retrofittings, if any, the Doreen’s Turkish shipowners have done to the ship before selling it on to its Singaporean buyers. The brokers reporting its sale, however, said the ship passed its special survey and had a ballast water treatment system recently installed.
If it was indeed Manta that pulled off the asset play with the Doreen, it might have others in store.
The Istanbul-based company emerged in December as the new owner of the 32,300-dwt bulker Mel Pride (renamed Manta Penyez, built 1999) — a vessel reported sold in early October for about $8m by Greece’s D&S Shipmanagement.
On 18 January, brokers identified Manta as the buyer of another handysize bulker, the 32,400-dwt Teda (built 2006), from China’s New Sailing for $13.55m. Manta managers did not respond to a request to comment on that information.
