There is still a considerable number of vessels in the dry bulk pool older than 20 years that are the likely candidates for demolition.

Namely, in the Handysize sector 15 % of the fleet is built before 1997 totaling in 365 ships, in the Handymax/Supramax sector 4% of the fleet is older than 20 years totaling in 115 ships and in the Panamax sector 5 % of the fleet is over 20-year-old, i.e., 98 ships, according to the data from Intermodal Research and Valuations.

"With the upcoming regulations scheduled to come into force until 2019, these vessels will mostly have to exit the market, with a rather small chance of very strong freight rates at the time allowing the retrofitting cost," Nassos Soulakis, Intermodal's SnP Broker said.

A large share of this tonnage is still controlled by Greeks: a total of 53 ships across the three sectors. Since the beginning of the year, Greek owners have been behind the sale of around 20 vessels built in the '90s, with most of them being Handysize and Handymax vessels.

"We believe that given the Greek percentage of ownerships of such tonnage, there is room for further sales down the line and reinforcement of this trend," Soulakis added.

As informed, most of the 90s built tonnage buyers are Chinese, Middle Eastern, selective few from the subcontinent, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainians.

"To conclude, this trend of Greek owners selling older vessels is certainly positive, since most of this tonnage usually ends up in the local market of the respective new owner, effectively reducing tonnage trading internationally, while at the same time the age profile of Greek controlled fleet is getting younger becoming more competitive in international trading," Soulakis noted.