Table of Contents
The situation with the vessels’ capacity
Susan Oatway issued a report as a part of Multipurpose Shipping Market Review and Forecast concerning the situation in the breakbulk industry. It concerns the multipurpose shipping market. The specialists consider that the recovery is still some way off. At the same time, the situation keeps changing. There are several multipurpose vessels launched (or MPV). Nevertheless, there are still plenty of situations with overcapacity and lack of tonnage. And the problems must be resolved.
There was a break in the new building activity in February 2017. The maximum deadweight in that period reached 145,000 tonnes.
There was also a progress in the demolition beaches of the vessels. Almost 40 vessels had a capacity of half-million deadweight tonnes. They were sold in 2017. With some more vessels being sold that year, the figures became better in comparison with the previous year.
It is vital to say that the number of project carriers increased compared with the situation, which was 5 years ago. An average number totaled about 70% of all the new building deliveries. Such a tendency shows that the fleet with the increased heavy-lift capacity keeps growing. There are currently about 900 vessels with the lift of over 100 tonnes.
Financial situation
International Monetary Fund hopes for the recovery with the global gross domestic product reaching 3.5% in 2017 and 3.6% in 2018 compared to 2016 figures, which totaled 3.4%. The speed of the recovery is slow but it is still happening. The reporting growth is claimed to have a positive influence on the breakbulk sector. As a result, the expectations for 2017 and 2018 were also positive. The growth for pure bulk cargo is expected to be about 2.6% for 2 years, while the expectations for 2018 were 4%. More data on this issue might be found on breakbulk.com.
There was a negative impact caused by Irma and Harvey hurricanes in the Gulf region. It mostly concerned the steel trade. The hope was just that the effect would be short-term. The renewables industry demonstrated a significant growth reaching about 9% in 2017. And the experts are very positive concerning 2018.
All in all, the expectations for the following 12-18 months expressed by Drewry are cautiously positive. It is required to give the sector certain time to meet the demands for better fleet and other improvements.