French orders to foreign shipyards

72
Hans Maersk,
20,700 cbm,
blt 1993
by Hyundai,
owned
by AP Moller.
22,200 cbm, built in 1968, upon which an explosion
occurred few days before the delivery to Chilean buyers,
who had just fixed her on a three-year ENAP contract.
• Large LPG carriers
The Pemex (Mexico) auction sales were the highlight
of the year, carried out with units that have been laid up
for over one year. Following the initial surprise sale of
"Ahkatun" (57,000 cbm, built in 1980) to General Ore
in January for a rather expensive $15 million, the
"Monterrey" (53,000 cbm, built in 1979) brought in $11
million, again from General Ore. Meanwhile, "Reynosa"
(53,000 cbm, built in 1979) was sold for the same price,
$11 million, to Scandinavian investors headed by Solvang
in November.
The difference in price was apparently unrelated to
the vessels’ condition or to a drop in the market, but
rather to the fact that the buyers, who had few grounds
for comparison at the beginning of the year, feared that
competition would be stiff for these ships. Ultimately,
this proved to be true only for the initial sale.
• Gas carriers from 20,000 to 50,000 cbm
The only transaction that was reported in this category
was the "Mundogas Europe" (22,000 cbm, built in
1968) sale. The vessel, which had just succeeded in
obtaining a three-year Enap contract in Chile, was
bought by Olympo for around $4 million. Unfortunately,
after the explosion, the vessel wasn't delivered to its
owners, who instead convinced the charterers to accept
"World Sky" in its place, despite the fact that the vessel
is far larger than what they were originally seeking.
• Gas carriers from 12,000 to 20,000 cbm
No sales were recorded in this size. With very few owners
controlling most of the vessels in this class, there will
probably be very few transactions in the future.
• Gas carriers from 3,000 to 12,000 cbm
A very strong downward pressure gripped this market segment,
especially for pressurised vessels, whose values must
be comparable to the cost of replacing them with newbuildings
that are always better buys. Nonetheless, it appears
that solid resistance to further price cuts has set in, at least
for the newest units.
Thus, a 3,500-cbm unit built in the early nineties, could have
obtained between $4 and 5 million, depending on technical
characteristics. On the buyer side, MC Shipping (Monaco)
and Petredec have continued to be active, followed at
the end of the year by Kosan who have bought the vessels
"Seoul Gas" (4,000 cbm, built in 1989) and "G. Glory"
(6,500 cbm, built in 1992) for $12.6 million "en bloc".
In the semi-refrigerated sector, the face to face between
buyers and sellers continued, and the rarity - or rather, the
absence - of sales denotes a strong will on the part of sellers
not to offer their vessels at the prices proposed by buyers.
Still, Naftomar did purchase "Alessandro Volta" (8,000 cbm,
built in 1982 and equipped with a Fiat motor) for less than
$6 million. This compares badly to the $8 to 9 million that
the owners had originally hoped to get when they put
the vessel on the market at the very end of 1998.