Euroseas, an owner and operator of drybulk and container carrier vessels and provider of seaborne transportation for drybulk and containerized cargoes, announced today that four subsidiaries of the Company have entered into time charter agreements for Three of its Containerships and One of its Drybulk Vessels.

Greek players have been very active in the secondhand market recently. The Lion Shipbrokers Weekly Report mentions M/V "GOOD FAITH" sold to clients of Laskaridis of Greece for $20 million. M/V "PAUL OLDENDORFF" sold to Greek buyers (hearing clients of W-Marine or clients of Cyprus Maritime or clients of Swiss Marine) for $11.5 million. AVIN and StealthGas have also been linked to acquisitions in the tanker and gas segments resepectively.

Returns for Capesize ships, the biggest carriers of iron ore, fell the most this month amid speculation elevated steel inventories in China are curbing demand to charter vessels.

Diana Shipping, a global shipping company specializing in the ownership and operation of dry bulk vessels, today reported net income of $5.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to net income of $20.2 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Little activity to show for this week with only two Aframax product tankers reported. Two very familiar parties, HMD and Scorpio Tankers, reportedly closed a USD 99.5 million deal for a pair of 114,000 DWT LR2s with 2014 delivery. In addition, D'Amico placed an order for 2 MRs with HMD for construction at their yard in Vietnam. The reported price is USD 29 million.

Greece-based Arkas Hellas S.A. has acquired containership "Mcuba" (1,122 TEU - 16,833 dtw - 1998 blt Germany), according to the latest S&P Market Report by Carriers. The reported price is approximately USD 3.4 million. Also secondhand, Livanos Fund is being linked to the acquisition of "Cap Isabela", a 159,000 DWT tanker vessel for USD USD 51 million.

Diana Shipping today announced that it has entered into a time charter contract with Cargill International S.A., Geneva, through a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, for one of its Capesize dry bulk carriers, the m/v Semirio. The Semirio is a 174,261 dwt Capesize dry bulk vessel built in 2007.

Flavor of the week is the sale of Japanese controlled panamax IVS MERLOT (76K BLT 2005 TSUNEISHI/JAPAN) for a punchy $16 million to Greek buyers (hearing clients of Chartworld or clients of EF Shipping) waiving inspection, Lion Shipbrokers say in their latest S&P report.

Clarkson says it expects to see the dry-bulk shipping crisis continue to struggle with the impact of oversupply. In its market-outlook comments the largest shipbroker in the world says, however, "planned increasing in cargo volumes and continued growth in demand is fundamental to our long-term belief in this sector".

Monte Carlo based Gestion and US based Scorpio books 10 product carriers at HMD. The latter got a total of 26 product carriers on order. We have to go back to 2003 to find lower prices for similar MRs. Although a very stable sideways moving price development over the last 6 months, it seems we have reached something that resembles a bottom.