Saudi tanker owner Bihar International is widely reported to have offloaded its oldest tanker for scrap at a price exceeding the $600 per ldt-mark.
Several brokers and demolition market sources report the 149,700-dwt Cheval Bleu (built 1995) as heading towards demolition.
A price of $615 per ldt is being mentioned. This is identical to the price level that Bihar is said to have achieved when it last scrapped a tanker in January, the 107,000-dwt Qubaa (built 1998).
Managers at low-profile Bihar didn’t respond to a request for comment on the Cheval Bleu’s sale.
The company, however, no longer features the Japanese-built vessel on its website and may be divesting it as part of a fleet renewal strategy.
Bihar will shortly take delivery of the last in a series of four LR newbuildings from New Times Shipbuilding, which now become Bihar’s biggest and youngest vessels.
Pakistan bouncing back?
According to one source speaking to TradeWinds, the Blue Cheval has been bought by cash buyers in Pakistan and will be scrapped in the same country.
That would be in line with Bihar’s Qubaa deal in January, which the company sold to Pakistan as well.
Perhaps more importantly, the Cheval Blue would be the first big vessel sold for demolition in Pakistan in four months, according to VesselsValue.
Plagued by a depreciating local currency, poor domestic steel demand and devastating floods, Pakistani scrapping players had little choice recently but to focus on the few, small vessels they could get their hands on.
With soaring tanker freight rates curbing owners’ appetite to torch their vessels, other demolition destinations haven’t been faring much better.
According to the latest Clarksons figures, overall tanker scrapping shrunk at an annual pace of 47% so far this year in terms of volume to 5.5 million dwt.
The Blue Cheval, however, is so old, that its owners couldn’t reasonably expect to trade it further, market players say — even in the greyer areas of the market facing western sanctions.
Bulkers, whose earnings have suffered lately, have seen much more scrapping activity lately. Cash buyers are said to have acquired four capesizes in recent weeks, as TradeWinds reported.
Market players, however, suspect that at least some of these vessels will not be sent for beaching in the end.
A recent turnaround in earnings noted in the capesize market may well convince their owners to keep them for further trading, one source said.
