Ship companies are likely to sell more bonds as they continue to struggle to get financing from banks, according to Perry van Echtelt, executive director at Fortis Bank Nederland NV.

Credit has been harder to get since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy in September 2008 sparked a financial crisis. Dry-bulk shipping markets collapsed last year, cutting ship values and forcing some operators to seek waivers on loan conditions. Shipping lines including Ukraine’s Industrial Carriers Inc. and Armada (Singapore) Pte have sought protection from creditors because of the slump. “For the moment it has to be seen when credit markets will return,” Van Echtelt told a conference in London. “The bond market was bigger than the credit market” for the year-to-date and that trend will continue, he said.

Owners of merchant ships face a funding shortfall of $20 billion to $30 billion a year after lending shrank, according to Nordea Bank AB, the biggest coordinator of loans to the industry. Euronav NV, Belgium’s largest oil-tanker owner, Malaysia’s MISC Bhd., the world’s biggest owner of liquefied natural gas tankers, and Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. have set bond sales totaling more than $800 million since August.

There are $500 billion to $550 billion of new ships on order, Ulf Andersson, head of shipping at Nordea AB’s London branch, told a conference in Athens on Oct. 8, citing estimates from shipbrokers Clarkson Plc and Astrup Fearnley A/S. There will be a 20 percent funding shortfall this year, potentially rising to an 80 percent gap by 2012, he said.

Banks are looking to sell shipping-portfolios regardless of whether the loans are performing, Emil Yiannopoulos, an Athens- based advisory partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, told the conference today.