CMA CGM finally engages in scrapping

21.11.2023

French ocean carrier CMA CGM is scrapping a ship for the first time since the Covid-19-fuelled container shipping boom ended.

The 2003-built, 1,118 TEU feeder vessel, CMA CGM Tanger, owned by the French carrier’s Moroccan subsidiary, Compagnie Marocaine de Navigation (Comanav), has been sold for an undisclosed price, for recycling in Turkey. The Marseille-based company acquired Comanav in 2007, after the latter was privatised by the Moroccan government.

Cash buyers and brokers said that boxship demolition remains slow, possibly because ship owners still have substantial financial reserves from the boom years and can afford to keep elderly vessels running in the near term.

Global Marketing Systems said that market sentiments are improving in the Turkish ship recycling market, where prices have climbed to US$325/ldt, up by around US$5/ldt from the previous week. Given that CMA CGM Tanger light displacement tonnage is 5,245, the ship might fetch around US$1.7 million.

The cash buyer said, “Turkey continues to surprise the industry, with weekly ongoing improvements amidst a key depreciating fundamental that should have taken the steam entirely out of its domestic ship-recycling market.”