Greek shipowners' newbuilding orderbook hits $27bn

2014-11-06

On 10 October 2014 the Greek newbuilding orderbook stood at some 537 ships of 48.2m dwt. By 1 November, the confirmed orderbook had grown by 14 ships and 1.2m dwt, according to Naftiliaki’s most recent research of the Greek shipping’s newbuilding programme.

Athens-based Naftiliaki puts a conservative estimate on the investment tied to these newbuilding projects at $27bn. Bulk carriers and tankers dominate the book, but the growing interest in a wider variety of ships types, including gas carriers, container ships, offshore supply vessels and drilling rigs, makes the orderbook an extremely interesting one.

With its vast domestic ferry network of over 300 passenger carrying ships, many of them over 20 years of age, one surprise is the fact that not one passenger ship has been ordered for more than four years, underlining perhaps the struggle ro-pax operators are facing as Greece battles recession.

However, this aside, authors of the research say the lull in ordering over the summer and early autumn appears at an end, with a number of other multi-ship orders either in the wings or promised as Greek owners continue to talk about upgrading their fleets.

With a rush of ordering in the first two quarters of the year the orderbook began to grow from the 390 ships of just on 32m dwt on order at October 2013. With ships being delivered at the rate of over two a week over the past four years, the current orderbook is far short of the one in October 2010.

The 94 entities building ships in the 2014 survey is down considerably on 2010 when 127 companies were shipyard customers with projects involving a total of 690 ships of 62.18m dwt. Like now in 2010 bulkers and tankers topped the ordering. This time’s 129 tankers / 15.9m dwt compares with 148 / 20.3m dwt in 2010, and the 254 bulkers / 24.5m dwt compares to 450 of 38.4m dwt four year ago.

Advancement into the container and gas transportation sectors is gathering pace and both sectors the 2014 orderbook are well up on four years ago.

Naftilkiaki’s 2014 survey reveals 49 containerships (3.27m dwt) are on order, for eight companies. Ships range in size from 13,000 dwt feeder vessels up to Costamare Shipping’s five of 132,000 dwt. At the same time in 2010, seven companies had 32 boxships on order of 2.32m dwt.

In recent months three US-listed owners, not until now active in container shipping, have revealed plans for growth in the area.

Evangelos Marinakis-led Capital Maritime has post-panamax containerships on order. Three of these are bound for Nasdaq-listed spin-off Capital Product Partners, which will pay $81.5m each for the 9,160teu eco-flex ships that have 60-month charters attached to France's CMA CGM at $39,250 a day when delivered by Daewoo Mangalia, Romania, next year, a big boost for cashflow.

In addition to NYSE-listed Costamare, Nasdaq-listed Paragon Shipping has four 21,700dwt units on order in China and NYSE-listed dry bulk operator Diana Shipping is another to target investments in the container sector along with its continuing shopping for bulkers. Private companies such as Evalend Shipping, Enesel and the Star Bulk / Oceanbulk / Oaktree Capital union have also made a splash with their first container ship investments.

Like others, Greeks have got the sniff for gas. Some 59 LPG carriers and 34 LNG carriers on order, around 23% and 43% of the respective orderbooks. In 2010 there were 17 LPGs and no LNGs on order for Greek interests. Now 12 companies have inked gas carriers, half of them supported by funding raised in the capital market, among them, newcomer Dorian Hellas, which has 17 ships for delivery over 12 months from next January.

Replying to a question put at a Poten & Partners hosted discussion in New York early October regarding “speculative ordering’ in the LNG sector, Dynagas’ George Procopiou, explained: “It’s not a problem… we’ve entered a golden age of gas.” Peter Livanos, from GasLog, at the same panel talked about the huge macro growth outlook, and noted an absence of risk “when you are adding to an existing and competent platform”.

At the other end of the gas market, the Harry Vafias-led StealthGas confirms having 19 LPG carriers on order at four Japanese and two South Korean yards. Fifteen of the ships fit into StealthGas’s niche market ranging in size from 3,650dwt to 6,400dwt, while four of 26,000dwt to roll out of South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo first half of 2017 take the Athens-based, Nasdaq-listed operator, into a new market segment.

Source from : Seatrade Global

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