In this year to the third quarter, global demolition volume turned out to have shown an obvious downtrend in dwt terms, compared to the corresponding period a year ago.

Clarkson Research said that a total of 748 vessels of a combined 33.40m dwt had been sold for scrap globally in the first nine months of this year, down by 24% year-on-year.

It is worth noticing that compared to average 11.2m dwt sold for demolition in the first nine months from 2005 to 2012, the recycling levels jumped nearly three times. In 2012, 58.20m dwt tonnage was scrapped, recording the largest amount not seen in history.

Among the figure recorded till the third quarter of this year, a total of 73 tankers, over 10,000 dwt, were sold for scrap with 23.3 average vessel age, of which, 19 aframaxes (20.7 years), 11 VLCC tankers (18.8 years), six panamaxes (22.3 years), four suezmax tankers (21.3 years) were included.

During the same period, a total of 305 bulkers were sent to scrapping facility with 27.7 average age. Handysize bulker took the largest volume with 166 units (29.4 years), followed by 52 units of handymaxes (26.6 years) and 48 panamax bulkers (27.3 years).

In September, shipbreakers in India and Bangladesh both accounted for 26% of scrap volumes, each showing year-on-year slight declines from 29% and 28%, followed by Pakistan and China with 22% and 21% shares, respectively.