It's not just Dryships, it's the entire industry. An article in Lloyds List details the problems besetting bulk shipping. It's rather lengthy, so I will try to put it in a nutshell.
Orders were placed for ships, for which there is no longer a demand. But, the ship yards are not accepting cancellations, nor delays in deliveries.
Here's the official version.
THE world’s bloated bulk carrier order book “spells disaster” for shipping markets and could produce “a wave of destruction for banks to rival the sub-prime crisis”, one of London’s most respected shipbrokers forecast on Wednesday.
Howe Robinson’s annual dry cargo report for 2009 appealed for owners, banks and shipyards to urgently and responsibly work together to “re-order” newbuildings and keep shipping solvent over the next decade.
“The newbuilding profile needs putting back in a tube, from whence it can be squeezed out again over many years to come,” the report said.
“If this does not happen the road to recovery will be littered with many more bankruptcies — and they will not just be shipowners.”
The warning comes as many owners remain embroiled in contentious talks with shipyards in Asia to scale back, cancel or delay orders made at the height of the six-year shipping supercycle.
Shipping is in “the eye of the storm” as the global economy and world trade faces its most serious crisis in 60 years, Howe Robinson said.
At the same time there are more than 3,000 bulk carriers on order at 155 different yards in 15 countries by 479 known owners. All are scheduled for delivery by 2011.
“Yards, owners and banks must realise that it’s not going to rosy in the future unless they do something about this,” said one of the report’s authors.
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