Bangkok-based intra-Asian liner player Regional Container Lines is reported to have sold three of its oldest vessels for recycling over the past week.
The sales come ahead of the company taking delivery of a raft of newbuildings on order at yards in China and Japan, with deliveries set to begin in 2024.
RCL’s 1,036-teu container ship Nanta Bhum (built 1990) was sold to an Indian ship recycling facility for an undisclosed price and was beached at Alang on 19 October under the name Nanta 7.
VesselsValue data indicates that two other container ships in the RCL fleet have also been recycled, although the ships have yet to appear on market reports published by cash buyers.
Listed by the online platform as having each been sold for $515 per ldt, or $3.6m, are the 1,324-teu sister ships Jitra Bhum and Kama Bhum (both built 1997).
Online ship tracking websites on Monday showed the Jitra Bhum as anchored off Chattogram and the Kama Bhum on a voyage from Port Klang to Singapore.
The company said in August that it would trim its fleet of older tonnage.
RCL has four 7,000-teu container ships at China’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding scheduled for delivery in 2024 and 2025.
Japan’s Nihon Shipyard is building two 12,000-dwt container ships for the company that will be delivered next year.
The Nanta Bhum was one of two vessels reported as sold for recycling on the Indian subcontinent over the past week.
The second reported deal was for an MR1 product tanker that Shipping Corp of India said in April had been sold to undisclosed interests based in the United Arab Emirates for $4.2m.
That deal for the 33,000-dwt Sampurna Swarajya (built 1999) does not appear to have gone through, as the Mumbai-based company reported in August that it had sold the ship “as is, where is what is” basis at Ennore anchorage in India.
Renamed Sampurna Rajya, the elderly tanker subsequently moved to an anchorage in the UAE to prepare for its final voyage to Alang, where it will fly the flag of Tanzania.
Market sources say that Indian-owned and flagged vessels are frequently reflagged and shifted to a foreign port before their final voyage to Alang. TradeWinds was told this is to satisfy specific quirks in India’s notorious bureaucracy.
