DS Norden, the listed Danish dry cargo and product tankers group, said it would seek to postpone deliveries of its newbuildings due to prolonged weakness on the dry bulk shipping market.
“For the time being, the dry bulk market is depressed and for that reason we are actively working to reduce costs and to postpone deliveries of new ships,” Jan Rindbo, Norden’s chief executive officer, said in a webcast presentation after the company had published its 1H15 interims on 12 August.
The company has a total of 23 newbuldings on order, consisting of one capsize vessel that is due in 2019, eight Panamax vessels that are scheduled for delivery from 2016 to 2017, and 14 Supramax dry bulkers, of which deliveries are scheduled to run from this year to 2019. It has no product tankers on order.
Norden has recently sold three 60,000 dwt Supramax’s built at the Japanese yards of Imabari Tadotsu and Mitsui Chiba, and replaced them with a new order at Mitsui for two Supramax bulkers with later deliveries, allowing them some breathing space due to the depressed dry bulk market.
Outstanding payments to the shipyard totalled USD308 million at the end of June, of which USD54 million is due this year; USD55 million in 2016; USD125 million in 2017; and USD74 million in 2018.
The company retained expectations for its dry cargo business area’s result remained unchanged, with operating result (EBIT) negative by USD25 million to break even. Norden’s dry bulk business entails 218 ships, including the newbuildings on order.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
