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04^th January 2019

NWE/MED

There is little to report for the festive period on the coasters in the West, with a numbers of ships finding themselves prompt as the offices begun to re-populate on Wednesday. Any cargoes that were quoted were not short of offers and the owners that managed to find employment were pressured into doing sub last done levels. Tonnage remains plentiful heading into the weekend and without a large injection of fresh enquiry early next week, owners will again find themselves into fixing at lower levels than last.

SEA/FEAST

There have been some interesting changes in the pressurized TC market in the East as several LPG term contracts have changed hands. Two of the major LPG TC takers have opted for larger pressurized carriers (7-11,000 cbm), as a result of which there is some length building up in the 5000 cbm segment. The general view is that these ships will eventually be absorbed back in the LPG TC trade albeit at lower rates. The recent round of TC discussions have seen rates moving slightly downwards (below USD 280,000 PCM for 5000 cbm vessels), putting the momentum slightly in charterers’ favour for the first time since September 2017. On the petchem side of the business, major traders have maintained their TC fleet strength as 2019 is the year with fewer cracker turnarounds in Asia and we expect traders to have better utilization of their TC fleet. The spot market in the East has stayed relatively flat due to the year-end /new year holidays.

Time Charter Fixtures

Vessel                  Built  CBM    Charterer  Period          Delivery            Hire

Clipper Eos         2019  21000 Marubeni  10 months  Singapore Feb  HNR

Gaz Millennium 2002 22500  Trammo    60-90 Days  Singapore Dec USD mid/high 400's pcm

Pacific Shanghai 2017 84000 Wanhua     5 years         East January    HNR

Clipper Eos          2019 21000 Marubeni  10 months  Singapore  Feb HNR

Hourai Maru       2019 38000 CNR            1 Year           Japan Feb         USD 575k level reported

BW Carina           2015 84000 Dow           30-60 days   Med Dec           USD mid/high 20’ PD

Sale and Purchase/New Buildings

Newbuilding

Tianjin South West (TSW) / Wideshine have placed an order for one firm plus one optional 85,100 cbm VLGC with a dual fuel LGIP main engine at Jiangnan Shipyard. s. Delivery is slated for Q3 2021 compared to Q1 2021 for their standard fuelled design. The vessel is reported to have been ordered against a Time Charter.

Second Hand

The three Unigas Partners (Sloman Neptun, Schulte and Ultragas) are confirmed as the Buyers of the 8 Evergas owned 12,000 cbm ethylene vessels built at Sinopacific Offshore Engineering (4 built in 2013 and 4 built in 2014). Sloman are taking 2 vessels whilst Schulte and Ultragas take 3 vessels each. Deliveries are due to be scheduled between Feb – Sept 2019, whereupon commercial control will shift from the E3 Pool to Unigas. No price has been reported, but it is understood to be excess US$25 mill per vessel.

Scrapping

The Bulgarian owned 3,200 cbm Semi-ref POLARIS (built 1981 at Svendborg Skibsvaerft, Denmark, 1,691 ldt) arrived in Aliaga at the end of December. No price has been reported.

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