South Asia: Scrapped Ship Imports See Near Collapse in April'20

Pandemonium has been sweeping across the globe since March, as a major number of ports reported shutdown & Crew quarantines result in drastic fall of Scrapped Ship imports.

As per our report earlier in March'20, a total of 20 ships were demolished in India, Bangladesh & Pakistan. However in April'20 there was a drastic fall in the Ship breaking market where only one Ship beached at Gadani port, Pakistan.

Ship Owners and Cash Buyers are facing tough times & many deals have been cancelled due to force majeure clauses being invoked. We have heard a few of deals at much lower levels but no details have been confirmed.

The total volume of Scrapped ships reaching ports of the South Asian market was recorded at 1,284 LDT in April, a fall of nearly 100% M-o-M as against 209,073 LDT in March.

On the fundamentals front, the market has been undergoing a disastrous time period, the Indian Rupee deteriorating to a worrying level of INR 75-78 against the U.S. Dollar in April, which was around INR 70 against the US dollar in January.

In the lockdown period, most of the ship recyclers have been in a wait & watch mode and they have been waiting for the government permission to resume for a long time, nowadays the government has started giving certain permissions on incoming vessels & yards get back to work with certain restrictions.

While in India lockdown 3.0 is finishing on 17th May & fresh announcements have been announced recently by the Prime Minister, it will be interesting to see the impact on market.

Ship Breaking in April Vs March'20

Source: SteelMint Stats.
Qty in LDT