GMS: Ship Recycling Market Still Slow

Despite Chinese new year holidays concluding on Friday, a pervading theme of an unrelenting dearth in the overall availability of tonnage across global ship recycling markets has been enduring for several quarters now, says cash buyer, GMS.

This has resulted in another dreary week of market inactivity and silence across all recycling destinations.

Charter rates continue to remain artificially elevated (especially) in the dry bulk sector, consequently placing a tighter squeeze on the overall supply of vessels for recycling. This resulted in a firming of demand and offers from the Bangladeshi and Pakistani markets and a simultaneous cooling of sentiments and pricing from an inexplicably reserved India - the forever anomalous market regularly defying predictable patterns, says GMS.

General elections in Bangladesh and Pakistan have concluded, and India’s election is expected to conclude next month as currently governing Prime Minister Modi is up for re-elections and (likely) victory.

Turkey reported further negative movements in import steel as well as the Turkish Lira, making matters further worse for a market that is rapidly running out of oxygen, says GMS.

“Overall, as China’s workforce is expected to filter back to work next week and most businesses resume operations, all in the industry continue to hope for a busier finish to Q1 2024.”

For week 7 of 2024, GMS demo rankings / pricing for the week are: