Bangladesh: Ship Breaking Imports Fall Sharply in Feb 2019

Bangladesh- one of the world's largest ship re-cycler and has remained still in the top buyers list of ship breaking scrap in Feb’19. Scrapped ship imports fell to 21 in Feb'19, as per the SteelMint’s assessment.

The total number of ships demolished in the Bangladesh Chittagong port was marked at 253,829 LDT (21 ships), down by 31.1% M-o-M. Meanwhile, in the last month it stood at 368,651 LDT with 38 ships.

In Feb’19, the total quantity ships beached in India in the port of Alang stood at 358,065 LDT, and reporded a down fall of 23% M-o-M as against 465,075 LDT in the first month of 2019.

Earlier in Feb’18, India topped list of buyer of scrapped ships however in Feb’19, Bangladesh topped the list followed by India 91,203 LDT & Pakistan 13,033 LDT, the data received from GMS showed.

In 2019 (Jan-Feb), Ship breaking scrap beached quantity in Bangladesh stood around 622,480 LDT with 58 number of ships.

Inline in the first 2 month (Jan-Feb’19), total of 29 scrapped ships were bought by India & breached in Alang port (West coast of India) with the total quantity of 186,351 LDT. As Alang is the world’s largest ship breaking/recycling site for ocean going vessels, in Feb’19 only 8 ships breached in comparison to last month with 21 ships.

Furthermore Pakistan stood 3rd in the ship recycling in Gadani port with 14,309 LDT and total of 5 number of ships in Jan-Feb’19 as against 14 ships in the same period of last year.

Price Scenario -

Currently prices in Bangladesh are reported at USD 450/LT for Tankers, USD 460/LT for Containers & USD 440/LT for Dry bulk. Meanwhile in India buyers are not active for scrapped ships over closing of financial year i.e. 31st March. Prices remains same this week & stood at USD 445/LT for Containers and USD 435/LT for Tanker.

However, Pakistan remained out of the competition with lowest tonnages imported in the subcontinent ship breaking since past couple of months. The prices for containers reached at USD 430/LT, Dry Bulk at USD 410/LT & tankers at USD 420/LT.