ClarkSea Index Hits Record $84,951 a Day as Recycling Drought Leaves Fleet Ageing

Global shipping earnings reached another milestone, with Clarksons Research's cross-sector ClarkSea Index surging 12% in a week to an unprecedented $84,951 a day, its fifth consecutive all-time high. The latest reading dwarfs the previous shipping supercycle's 2007 peak of $50,714 a day, and this year's average is running 70% above 2025 and 87% ahead of the ten-year trend. Crude tankers drove the move: average VLCC earnings jumped another 21% last week to $804,601 a day, suezmaxes climbed 17% to $724,398 and aframaxes surged 46% to $393,951.

Elsewhere, dry bulk softened, with capesize earnings retreating 16% to $31,130 a day and overall bulker earnings slipping 3% to $22,319. Containers remained exceptionally resilient, with the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index at 3,664 points, 215% higher year on year. VLGCs are enjoying record earnings of $209,000 a day on the US Gulf-Japan route, while LNG carriers remain the conspicuous laggard, with modern spot earnings down 19% to $34,250 a day. Broker Affinity noted that the cycle is being driven by a geopolitical environment that shows no signs of abating, adding that there is still more life in the party yet.

The earnings boom has all but shut the recycling exit. Clarksons calculates that just 273 ships of 5.5m gt, equivalent to around 8m dwt, were sold for demolition in the first nine months of 2026, 13% below last year's already dismal pace and 60% beneath the average across the 2000s and 2010s. Less than 0.5% of global fleet tonnage has been scrapped annually for five successive years, the longest such drought since the early 1970s. As a consequence, more than 340m gt of shipping is now at least 20 years old, up 90% in five years and representing almost 20% of the world fleet against 12% in 2021, while a record 68m gt has passed 30 years.

Ageing is most pronounced in tankers, where 22% of capacity is now over 20 years old against just 8% five years ago, and in containers, where the proportion has doubled to 16% even as an orderbook exceeding 40% of the existing fleet looms. Indian subcontinent scrap steel prices have risen 20-25% this year, but cash buyer GMS said the final quarter is developing into a contest of patience, with recyclers having the capacity and willingness to buy while owners still have freight earnings, secondhand alternatives and time on their side.

Owners are nonetheless still committing to newbuildings. Singapore-listed Yangzijiang Maritime Development has signed for four firm 82,000 dwt kamsarmaxes plus options for two more at Jiangsu Watts Energy & Engineering, its first reported order at a yard that has only recently entered conventional merchant ship construction; a comparable kamsarmax series booked at the same yard in August for 2028 delivery was estimated at $35m to $38m per vessel. A separate September disclosure of 24 firm contracts and 16 options across ultramaxes, MR and stainless steel chemical tankers and VLCCs lifted the group's portfolio to 98 vessels. In the gas segment, MISC accepted a letter of award from Petronas LNG covering five new LNG carriers on firm 20-year charters entering service from 2030, to be built at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, doubling that programme to ten vessels.