Need a quotation?

Dear Customers, if you wish to receive a quotation, we kindly ask you to fill in below form. Once the form has been duly filled and submitted, the rates will be quoted to you.

SEARCH SITE BY TYPING (ESC TO CLOSE)

Skip to Content

Blog Archives

Greeks and Chinese dominate global fleet market

“The global fleet of cargo carrying ships consists of around 61,000 ships with a deadweight capacity of about 2,200 million tonnes. The ships owned by Greek and Chinese shipping companies contribute 34% of the total fleet’s deadweight tonne capacity,” says Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO.

Although consolidation has been significant within the container shipping segment, the overall shipping market is still very fragmented, and the average shipping company only owns a few ships. Over time, key shipping nations have, however, emerged. Some have since lost importance due to shifts in global trade, but Greece has remained the world’s foremost shipping nation.

More recently, China’s importance as a shipping nation has grown and Chinese shipowners now jointly control the world’s largest merchant fleet. The country also currently owns the second largest fleet of cargo carrying ships.

“Measured by cargo capacity, Greek shipowners control the world’s largest fleet of cargo carrying ships. In total, they control 19% of the cargo carrying capacity and maintain a particularly high share within the dry bulk, tanker, and gas carrier sectors,” says Rasmussen.

The focus of Chinese shipowners has been slightly different. They control a smaller share of tankers and gas carriers but a higher share of the general cargo and container fleets, with COSCO Shipping contributing to the higher share of the container fleet.

The entry of Chinese financial institutions into the leasing market has significantly contributed to the growth of the Chinese owned fleet in recent years, and five out of the 10 largest Chinese shipowners are leasing institutions. Combined, the ten largest shipowners control 41% of the Chinese owned fleet.

The ten largest Greek shipowners are all “traditional” shipowners. Unlike the top ten Chinese owners, the top ten list of Greek shipowners is not dominated by one large owner. Instead, there are seven owners with fleets larger than 10 million deadweight tonnes whereas only three Chinese shipowners have such large fleets.

Even though the Chinese fleet has fewer large owners, the order book held by all Chinese shipowners is 21% larger than the order book held by Greek owners.

Although Greek owners are often very active in the second-hand market, this could indicate that the Chinese fleet may grow faster than the Greeks’ fleets in the coming years.

“Common to both Chinese and Greek shipowners is that relative to their existing fleet, their order books are for LNG carriers and Pure Car Carriers (PCC), two markets currently experiencing solid growth. Chinese owners hold the largest order books in these segments. The order book for LNG and PCC ships is respectively 126% and 260% of the current fleet,” says Rasmussen.

Source: Container News

READ MORE

Container spot rates remain high despite weaker supply/demand balance

In this week’s “Shipping Number of the Week” from BIMCO, chief shipping analyst, Niels Rasmussen, looks at the fact that despite a 70-80% fall in freight rates, and worsening of the supply/demand balance, liner operators have been able to keep rates higher than pre-pandemic levels.

“The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index and the China Containerized Freight Index have dropped by respectively 81% and 72% since January last year. Yet, they remain higher than in 2019 despite a worsening supply/demand balance,” commented Niels Rasmussen.

Although export volumes from the Far East were relatively stronger in March 2023, first quarter volumes fell 8.5% year-on-year because of a market slowdown that began in the 2nd half of 2022.

As a result, the volumes were only 2.1% higher than during the first quarter of 2019. Exports to the three top regions, which account for 80% of volumes, were down 0.1% combined, with the Far East up 0.6%, Europe down 4.5%, and North America up 2.6%.

Except for the United States, Australia/New Zealand, and Lagos (Nigeria), the spot rates to all destination are, however, more than 10% higher in May 2023 than in May 2019. To the Mediterranean, Santos, Dubai, and Durban they are approximately double of what they were in May 2019.

During the last four years, the container fleet has grown 16.9% in size and ended April 2023 at 26.2 million TEUs, 3.8 million TEUs larger than in April 2019.

“The average sailing speed of container ships in April 2023 was 3.4% lower than in April 2019. This has limited the supply that the fleet can deliver. However, the total available fleet supply has still significantly outgrown Far East export volumes,” noted Rasmussen.

Despite this, the average spot rates for Shanghai exports (SCFI) and average rates for China exports (CCFI) remain significantly up vs. 2019. Recently, liner operators even appear to have been able to stem the freight rate slide and achieved some level of stability.

Idle ships currently add up to about 90,000 TEUs more than four years ago, but this cannot explain the higher rates or how liner operators have been able to stabilise freight rates.

Despite overall supply/demand developments, liner operators must have become more efficient at matching capacity to cargo demand and/or a newfound freight rate discipline has emerged with each liner operator.

“No matter the underlying reason, we can conclude that despite a 70-80% fall in freight rates, and a worsening of the supply/demand balance, liner operators have so far been quite successful in keeping rates higher than pre-pandemic levels,” said Rasmussen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Container News

READ MORE