THE demand growth in box trades, which has led to record-breaking charter rates amid a shortage of feedermax vessels to help lines manage congested ports and container imbalances, has resulted in the sales of containerships breaching the US$1 billion mark in June, reports UK's Lloyd's List.
The acute shortage of fixable ships means charter rates are now reaching levels at which they are skewing traditional indices, said Hamburg-based Verband Hamburger und Bremer Schiffsmakler (VHBS) in its weekly report.
The association of Hamburg and Bremen shipbrokers produces a weekly assessment via its ConTex indices of eight different ship sizes over 24-, 12- or six-month periods.
Owners seeking to fix boxships for as long as possible at the market peak has seen most periods set at three-year or five-years, according to VHBS.
Longer-term rates were decoupling from shorter periods challenging the methodology behind indices assessments and "the evaluated periods are not really representing the physical market anymore," the report said.
The frenzy for boxship tonnage also translated to some 1.1 billion of the vessels sold in June, up 34 per cent month on month, according to Piraeus-based shipbroker Golden Destiny's monthly report.
Containerships comprised 24 per cent of all second-hand sales in June, with 47 vessels sold, the shipbroker said. Of these 12 sales were confidential, with total invested capital for the remaining 34 vessels said to be worth $827 million lifting the total figure over $1 billion.
Of these 47 ships, 29 were in the feedermax category (of 2,000 to 3,000 TEU), signalling the rising popularity of the flexible-sized ships.
They are also commending rates at about $75,000 per day, based on fixtures reported by brokers.
The 2007-built, 2,741 TEU Posen was chartered for 12 months for $75,000 daily while Interasia Lines took the smaller and younger Hansa Colombo for three years at a daily rate of $28,000.
Rates are up between 10.7 per cent and 5.5 per cent week on week, and between 45 per cent and 17.4 per cent higher on the month-ago period, and as much as seven times the going rate 12 months ago, according to VHBS.
In June, 102 bulk carriers and 34 tankers were also sold, with total sales of all three categories at $3.4 billion according to Golden Destiny.