Phantom newbuildings make the dry cargo orderbook much smaller than it appears on paper, according to Fearnresearch.
This will assist in the continued recovery of the freight market by keeping fleet growth limited in the next few years, managing director Sverre Bjorn Svenning says.
“We would claim there is a huge pile of phantom orders in the orderbook,” Svenning told a seminar in London.
He explained that shipyards contracted a number of vessels to their own account in 2015 ahead of new regulations, creating an inventory for them to market over the following years at completive prices.
“They are still not delivered and we believe a big share of these ships will never be delivered,” Svenning said.,
“Out of the 92 million dwt tons nominal orderbook we estimate 20 to 25m dwt of phantom orders. So the orderbook at 9% is in reality only 7% to 7.5%.
“This is extremely good news as what killed the market was excessive fleet growth.
“We think what is going to repair is a very moderate or zero growth for a long period. We also think we have started that period already.”
