Outlook for the dry bulk shipping market

• Main Author: Wee, Wei Ming
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Maritime studies
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/61183
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper explores the outlook of the dry bulk shipping market in next decade by studying the market conditions and the important driving factors. These crucial factors consist of demand and supply fundamentals, freight rates development and the world economy. In the demand fundamentals portion, further aspects such as dry bulk commodities and trade routes, average haul and ship demand forecast will be looked into. In addition, dry bulk vessel types, current fleet size, age profile, and fleet growth will be studied as for supply fundamentals section. The market sentiments believe that the shipping industry is coming out of the trough period that affected the industry for the past few years. With the improving freight rates supported by growing global demand for dry bulk commodities driven by economic recovery, the market prospects for dry bulk shipping are optimistic in the near future. Though the overcapacity issue is improving, there is still risk of it repeating in the next few years due to the incoming waves of new deliveries from the recent new orders. China will remain the major driving force for dry bulk sector, as the domestic economic activities and any new policies or changes implemented will have direct impacts on the demand tonnage. Many have chosen to engage in longer term contracts for transportations, while others have rushed to order new ships from the yards to take advantage on the low new building price. The financially capable shipowners are recommended to make order for new eco ships to maximize on the edge from fuel and operational efficiencies offered by these cutting edge ships.