Ship Recycling Market Faces Tight Squeeze

Across the industry this week, the ongoing and disastrous state of affairs in both Bangladesh and Pakistan on opposite ends, coupled with the onset of the customarily slower summer / monsoon months, has increasingly descended the Indian sub-continent ship recycling markets into a tighter squeeze, reports cash buyer GMS.

India too shuffles through the impact of its recent election results, and Turkey is in wait for any signs of tonnage coming their way.

“A natural byproduct of such a depreciation has been the increasingly marginal number of units arriving sub-continent port positions every week, with Pakistan now sitting at nil again. In fact, even though the industry is surprisingly starting to see decent prices emanating from both India (and even Bangladesh to an extent) on the right units; unfavored, poorly built, or questionably maintained tonnage is being largely ignored,” states GMS.

This further highlights the dithering state of the global ship recycling industry that is ‘picky while poor’. “Smack in the middle is the Indian stock market that too is getting back on its feet after suffering a brief collapse pursuant to the announcement of PM Modi’s BJP failing to generate a majority in the Parliament. Yet, those losses were soon recovered as the overall confidence in the market remains high, and not only do imminent infrastructure projects and economic stimuli measures remain in the pipeline, but India’s upcoming budget is also being announced in the third week of July, when the timeline of said projects should become clearer thereafter.”

GMS continues: “The possibility of increasing excursions in the area could see merchant vessels completely bypassing the Red Sea (should all-out war breakout in the region) resulting in an even greater global inflation that will deliver even more of a disaster for citizens of the world. Time will tell!”

For week 25 of 2024, GMS demo rankings / pricings are: