Ship operators will increasingly dominate the market. Discuss

• Main Author: Low, Joycelyn Yi Hui
• Other Authors: Vernlick Chua
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68534
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The objective of this dissertation was to determine if ship operators are increasingly dominating the dry bulk market as compared to ship owners. Interviews were conducted with 7 industrial professionals and surveys were distributed to 38 targeted dry bulk companies to gather their valuable opinions on the research topic and also a holistic view on the dry bulk market. The paper commenced by examining various fundamentals of dry bulk market such as the demand and supply factors from both ship owners and operators perspective. After which, four barriers to entry were identified as followed: investment in physical infrastructure, investment in human capital, economies of scale and creation of customer loyalty. These four barriers to entry would challenge whether a company should be an operator or owner in the perfectly competitive dry bulk market. Overall, the findings reflected that the ship operators are increasingly dominating the dry bulk market. It was observed that there are lesser pure traditional ship owning companies operating in the current dry bulk market. Companies now viewed both business models as business strategies to better sustain their business. Hence, more companies are integrating the ship owning and operating model in order to exploit the strengths and overcome weaknesses in both models. Furthermore, since the dry bulk market is perfectly competitive with low barriers to entry, it encouraged more companies to enter the market as operators due to its asset-light business nature and also the various strength the model possessed that allowed companies to better capture the market as compared to being a pure traditional ship owner. Lastly, the paper also forecasted that the dry bulk market would recover from its lowest point over the next few years. But, believed that the peak phase would not be able to sustain for a long period of time due to the after effects of China’s economy and oversupply issues. Hence, this makes it important for the market players to understand the market in order to make strategic decisions in the long run.