Last week, three more Very Large Ore Carriers headed for scrapping, that is a combined ~850,000 dwt that has now permanently removed from the active fleet.
Stellar Samba, 1994, 291,000 dwt
Guofeng Enterprise, 1993, 261,000 dwt
Stellar Iris, 1995, 288,000 dwt
Obviously a positive development for the dry bulk market, but one should remember the very large newbuilding program for this year.
Fleet growth should be positive this year, although delays in deliveries and Vale’s commitment to stop using older VLOCs might make it a close-to-call year in terms of fleet growth. Consensus is that the dry bulk fleet will increase by more than 2% this year. We continue to believe that the risk is on the downside, and although such development won’t really have a material impact on supply-demand near term, it will surely help the balance as we head into 2021.