Braemar Seascope: No shipping recovery until mid-2014
Peter Malpas, director of chartering and ship-brokering company Braemar Seascope, predicts that the shipping industry will not recover until demand catches up with the supply of available tonnage, which won't happen for at least 18 months, Australia's WA Business News reports.
"There are some differences among the specific types of ships but we're really not talking about any recovery until the middle of 2014 onwards," he said.
While exports of commodities like iron ore, coal, and agricultural products have been increasing, excess capacity and high fuel prices are a continuing problem for the shipping industry.
Braemar Seascope figures show the market's dry-bulk capacity up 10 percent over the course of 2012 to 658 million dry-weight tonnes.
"It's very difficult to cancel a ship once it has commenced construction," Malpas said. "Once it was evident how many ships had been ordered in 2007, it could really only go one way."
Malpas said the current market has been good news for exporters, which can take advantage of low freight rates and more flexible options on voyages, including stops at multiple ports.
"Instead of just going to one port they can probably go to one or two or even three ports if they wanted to because the hire-cost of the ship is so much lower than the time incurred to do deviations," he said.
Malpas also said that fuel-saving "eco-ship" technologies are now popular, and he noted the concept can involve a variety of changes, from efficient hull forms to planned maintenance programs.
Some observers have said that buying new ships to improve efficiency can actually cause more market problems by exacerbating the oversupply of vessels.
