Ship Owners Adding More Newbuildings and Secondhand Ships As Freight Market Improves In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “these past two weeks we saw 4 kamsarmaxes and 1 handysize being added in the global dry bulk orderbook. The encouraging freight market performance during the last few months has overall boosted interest for newbuilding projects. However, it seems that there is a slow-down noted of late, partly driven by the increases noted in the orderbook in the year so far. The total orders in the period Jan-Apr 2021 have reached 52 units, while the respective number for the same period in 2020 was just 36. The rising newbuilding prices have also played a key role in this step back during the last few weeks. However, as interest remained vivid, it is almost certain that more business will emerge during the coming weeks, on the back of the impressive earnings. In the tanker market, fundamentals are pointing towards a completely different direction, with sentiment having been hit consecutively for several months now. However, the anticipated demand recovery which is believed to surface later in the year has revived some interest for newbuldings. This past week we witnessed an impressive number of new orders (4 Aframaxes and 18 chemical and MR units)”.