by Andrew » January 26, 2022, 10:46 am
I wouldn't expect the Blough or Callaway to get touched by CN again. Since the entire fleet is for sale, they'll let the buyer deal with these two. It really will depend on the stability of the buyer and whether they think they can afford to repair them will pan out in the long run.
The most likely buyers of Great Lakes Fleet are Cleveland-Cliffs or the current GLF operator, Key Lakes. If CN can't negotiate a "package deal" with either of these two prospective buyers, they'll have to parse them out ship by ship to different operators. Often, as has been the case in the past, smaller package deals involve one or two operable ships and maybe one or two boneyard bound vessels. If CN can't sell the entire fleet to a new operator, I'd expect there is little chance either the Callaway or Blough will ever sail again.
If Cliffs or Key Lakes ends up buying the fleet, it may behoove them to get the ships repaired. For both fleets, there are different reasons they would. For Cliffs, the more capacity they have to corner their entire steel production, the better. More ships mean less out-of-fleet shipping contracts. And Cliffs would have the immediate funds to repair the Blough and Callaway. For Key Lakes, if they enter as complete owner, for them to strategically place themselves as a competitive fleet, they may want to have the capacity to do it. I've heard they'd have difficulty immediately affording these two repair jobs, but I would expect that the smaller a fleet is, the harder it is to get a diversity of contracts. Maybe I'm wrong, but because of the shortage of hulls on the US side because of the Jones Act, scrapping ships requires a lot of thought and calculation. Remember that Key Lakes is running that fleet and turning a profit, just not as high a profit as CN would like, hence some of the ships sitting at the wall. Key Lakes, if they buy the fleet, may see the long-term value in keeping that fleet in good shape and intact, and since they wouldn't have other assets to fall back on like CN, may have little choice but to invest everything in keeping that fleet in good shape for the foreseeable future.
Then, of course, there is the impending EPA regulation on emissions, which I frankly don't think is a huge factor right now. 1/3 of the ships on the lakes will have to deal with this, and it will be either a special stipulation as part of the Jones Act or a lot of repowering jobs that will happen. I just don't see a lot of newbuilds coming on the great lakes anytime soon, not just because I love the classics, but because those hulls have some life left in them. Some of them need some work, but not 50 million in work.
I wouldn't expect the Blough or Callaway to get touched by CN again. Since the entire fleet is for sale, they'll let the buyer deal with these two. It really will depend on the stability of the buyer and whether they think they can afford to repair them will pan out in the long run.
The most likely buyers of Great Lakes Fleet are Cleveland-Cliffs or the current GLF operator, Key Lakes. If CN can't negotiate a "package deal" with either of these two prospective buyers, they'll have to parse them out ship by ship to different operators. Often, as has been the case in the past, smaller package deals involve one or two operable ships and maybe one or two boneyard bound vessels. If CN can't sell the entire fleet to a new operator, I'd expect there is little chance either the Callaway or Blough will ever sail again.
If Cliffs or Key Lakes ends up buying the fleet, it may behoove them to get the ships repaired. For both fleets, there are different reasons they would. For Cliffs, the more capacity they have to corner their entire steel production, the better. More ships mean less out-of-fleet shipping contracts. And Cliffs would have the immediate funds to repair the Blough and Callaway. For Key Lakes, if they enter as complete owner, for them to strategically place themselves as a competitive fleet, they may want to have the capacity to do it. I've heard they'd have difficulty immediately affording these two repair jobs, but I would expect that the smaller a fleet is, the harder it is to get a diversity of contracts. Maybe I'm wrong, but because of the shortage of hulls on the US side because of the Jones Act, scrapping ships requires a lot of thought and calculation. Remember that Key Lakes is running that fleet and turning a profit, just not as high a profit as CN would like, hence some of the ships sitting at the wall. Key Lakes, if they buy the fleet, may see the long-term value in keeping that fleet in good shape and intact, and since they wouldn't have other assets to fall back on like CN, may have little choice but to invest everything in keeping that fleet in good shape for the foreseeable future.
Then, of course, there is the impending EPA regulation on emissions, which I frankly don't think is a huge factor right now. 1/3 of the ships on the lakes will have to deal with this, and it will be either a special stipulation as part of the Jones Act or a lot of repowering jobs that will happen. I just don't see a lot of newbuilds coming on the great lakes anytime soon, not just because I love the classics, but because those hulls have some life left in them. Some of them need some work, but not 50 million in work.