The secondhand market continued to set records in the first half of 2022, with activity at “extraordinarily elevated levels”, says Clarksons.
A total of 72m dwt across all major segments changed hands between January and June, in the second-strongest half-year on record.
In the first three months, 33m dwt was sold, followed by 40m dwt in the second quarter, which was the third-highest quarter on record.
“The second half of 2022 seems to have got off to a slightly slower start so far, with sales in July reaching 8m dwt, the lowest monthly total since 2020, amid the start of the holiday season and increasing uncertainty,” said Clarksons.
“However, with 10m dwt sold in the first five weeks of the third quarter alone, recent activity looks less subdued in a historical context, which has averaged 19m dwt per quarter between 2011 and 2019.”
Meanwhile, despite some recent slight softening in container ship and bulker prices, pricing across the key segments is still higher than at the beginning of the year.
“Our indices are up 11% on the start of 2022 in the bulker sector, 13% in the containership sector and 32% in the tanker segment following gains of 66%, 168% and 12% respectively across 2021,” said Clarksons.
Against this backdrop, the estimated value of secondhand sales has risen firmly: after last year’s record $48bn, the value of sales so far in 2022 has increased 30% year on year to more than $33bn.
Despite this increase, activity levels have varied across the major sectors.
Container ship activity eased after record sales of 1.6m teu last year. The broker attributed this to a combination of limited tonnage availability, especially in the larger sizes, and increasing uncertainty over the demand outlook.
Bulker activity was very strong in the first half, with 30m dwt sold, albeit slightly below 2021’s record pace. However, volumes have since eased against a backdrop of softer market sentiment, with 33m dwt sold so far this year, down 17% year on year.
Tanker S&P activity has remained strong, with buyer appetite supported by significantly improved earnings, and some sellers looking to capitalise on asset value gains.
“So far this year, over 390 tankers of 38m dwt have been sold, similar in pace to the 2021 record and equal to 9.4% of the fleet on an annualised basis and well above the average of the last 10 years of 5.4%,” Clarksons said.
In terms of buyers and sellers, Greek owners are again topping the charts in 2022, being involved in more than 30% of all reported sales in deadweight terms.
Chinese owners were the second-largest buyers, and edged ahead of the Japanese to become the second-largest sellers, the broker said.
