While much has been said about the oversupply which plagued the dry bulk market for years, ship owners have once again jumped on the bandwagon of purchases, as freight rates have improved sentiment. Over the past few weeks, newbuilding ordering activity and secondhand investments have been dominated by demand for dry bulk tonnage.

In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that "after a week of limited activity in the newbuilding market, this week things returned with a sense of spark, with a notable flow of fresh orders being reported and overall dominated by the dry bulk sector. This drive in activity has likely been driven by the wake of both the positive momentum being seen in terms of sentiment and the considerable improvement in terms of earnings coming from the freight market rally. On the tanker front, things remained relatively quiet, with uncertainty still holding most investors back and keeping a cap on any push for new projects. Even though there is some vividness and fresh interest in the right now for dry bulk vessels, this is followed by a sense of hesitation among market participants for when it comes to new ordering, given the fragile balance being noted in terms of tonnage supply and the amount of owners in the market which hold TIER III designs out of favor right now. Most are still focusing on the secondhand market for buying opportunities, thinking that asset prices are not yet high enough to turn their sights towards newbuildings. In any case, there is a sense now that this flow of new orders will continue strong till the closing of the year".

In a separate shipbuilding report, shipbroker Clarkson Platou Hellas said that it was “another quiet week in the Newbuilding market with only one order to report. In the Passenger / Cruise market, Austal have announced winning an order for two firm approx. 7,500 GT Passenger / Car Trimaran Ferries from Lineas Fred Olsen. The two vessels are set for delivery in 1Q and 4Q 2020 and will be able to carry 1,100 passengers and up to 276 cars when delivered. The Owner already has two Passenger/Car Ferries in its fleet built by Austal”, the shipbroker concluded.

Meanwhile, on the S&P market this past week, "on the dry bulk side, there continues to be a steady stream of deals that are coming to market, with activity this week being mainly focused on the Supramax size segment and a fair amount involving relatively modern tonnage. On the Price aspect of these deals, it seems as though further gains are made inch by inch with limited appetite for any significant price rises despite the still strong amount of competition amongst buyers and the sharp improvement in earnings. It seems as though most still feel that there is limited room for further price gains to be had right now. On the tanker side, the market still remains relatively quiet, with only two Aframaxes (one of which is an old sale concluded in August) and two MR vessels changing hands. There seems to be a considerable mismatch between the price ideas expressed by sellers and those expressed by buyers right now, especially in the larger crude oil carriers, where buyers are only in search of bargain deals", Allied said.

Similarly, ship valuations' expert VesselsValue pointed out this week that Mid Age Supramax values have firmed. "The Tenmyo Maru (58,700 DWT, Nov 2008, Tsuneishi Zhoushan) sold to Pavimar for USD 13.8 mil, VV value USD 13.3 million" said VV.