久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
China
Home / China / Business

Shipping industry feels adrift

By Alfred Romann for China Daily | China Daily | Updated: 2013-05-24 08:51

 Shipping industry feels adrift

Despite the decline of the shipping industry, the Kwai Tsing container terminals in Hong Kong remain among the busiest in the world. Er QiZheng / China Daily

 

Challenging times likely to remain until at least next year

After buoyant times, the shipping industry is experiencing that sinking feeling, with all hope of a bottoming out and rebirth having been smothered.

Shipowners and those who charter vessels were optimistic during the first two months of this year, but during the past couple of months the paucity of orders for new vessels has all but dashed hopes. Times are likely to remain challenging until at least next year.

"The shipping industry is at historically low levels, and it can't get much lower. If you are looking to buy ships, you couldn't find a better time. The only issue is that you would have to sustain this market for a few years before you started to make a lot of money," says Ravindranath Raghunath, head of chartering at the Noble Group. "Since 1997, the market has not been any lower than it is today."

China's largest shipping company, China COSCO Holdings, reported large losses for 2012, adding to significant losses in 2011. The Danish giant AP Moller-Maersk A/S has warned that global overcapacity is a threat to the industry. Dry bulk shipping rates in 2012 were a fraction of the 2010 highs and have yet to recover. All of this has put the industry in a funk.

Between 2003 and 2008 the mood was exuberant. They were boom years and the industry dreamed of almost perpetual expansion. Powered by economic growth in China and its seemingly inexhaustible demand for raw materials, the shipping industry reached record highs in 2008. Demand for space in container, bulk and tanker ships far outstripped supply, so owners could easily set almost whatever price they chose to hire out ships, while shipping companies could virtually set their own fees.

Massive profits pushed companies to order ships in record numbers, but those orders marked the beginning of the end of the good times. The addition of hundreds of ships to the global fleet vastly increased the supply of cargo capacity.

By itself, that increase would have imposed significant downward pressure on prices, but the industry was also hit by the global financial crisis. Economies in North America and Europe started to contract, while growth in Asia - most notably China - slowed. This translated into much lower demand at a time of increasing supply. As a result, the industry slumped.

The Baltic Dry Index, issued every day by the London-based Baltic Exchange, which tracks the cost of shipping some of the major raw materials, is at levels unseen since 1997.

The index reached a record high of 11,793 in May 2008 and then began to plummet. It fell to just 647 in February 2012. On March 22, the index was at 922, up 33 percent for the year but still at historic lows. On May 22, it opened at 829, 6 points below the previous day's close.

The problem is that there are just too many ships out there, according to industry stakeholders.

"This is clearly not a demand-driven market," says Raghunath. "The next couple of years will not be about demand."

The industry had expected to see the glut in capacity sorted out this year through the trade in ore and measures taken by companies to cut supply, such as mothballing older vessels or slowing ships along their routes, thus limiting the cargo space available.

But, what has actually happened surprised everybody.

"Had I made this speech two months ago, I would have said 'Things are looking good, no one is ordering ships'," says Raghunath. "What we have seen in the past two months is record orders. I don't recall any 60-day period in which so many Capesize ships have been ordered. Certainly not in the past four or five years."

Capesize refers to vessels too large to use in the Suez canal, and which therefore have to round the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn.

Oversupply, falling profits

The shipbroker Clarkson PLC estimates that there is a 20 percent oversupply in the global fleet, but owners are ordering new and more fuel-efficient ships in almost record numbers.

And, given the time lag between ordering a ship and receiving it, 2014 is not likely to be much better for the industry.

"The margin between revenue and operational costs today is extremely narrow. Owners are finding things extremely tough," says Martin Rowe, managing director at Clarkson Asia Ltd.

The addition of new shipping capacity to an already weak market is likely to extend difficult times well into 2015.

Shipping companies have generally reported weak results for the last year and few expect to do much better in the year ahead. Meanwhile, freight rates for Capesize vessels have dropped from a peak of $90,000 (70,056 euros) per day in January 2009 to a little more than $10,000 during the last quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of this year.

According to Drewry Maritime Research, the average daily bulk-shipping rate for a Capesize vessel rose to $40,300 in 2010, before falling sharply to $11,700 in 2012.

AP Moller-Maersk reported a 33 percent drop in annual profits in February 2012. The company's profits have rebounded this year, but only after the Scandinavian shipping giant reduced capacity and raised fees. In a statement released in February, the company said it expects profits to be lower this year than in 2012 because its container shipping operations have come under pressure.

Meanwhile, COSCO, the largest operator of dry bulk ships by capacity, said it had significant losses for 2012. In common with other shipping companies, COSCO has been hit by low freight rates. In 2011, it lost $1.7 billion and expects similar losses this year.

All the doom and gloom has created another problem for the industry; financing is drying up. Banks are increasingly unwilling to extend loans to buy new and better ships and it can be difficult for companies to restructure to handle existing debts.

The troubled times in the industry have attracted private equity investors looking for opportunities to buy cheap. While banks such as HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland are all trying to get out of their shipping loans, alternative investors such as Apollo, Blackstone and Centerbridge are snapping them up at prices they hope will prove to be bargains.

The challenges for the container shipping industry are not dissimilar to those facing the oil-shipping sector.

"(It's) the usual reason: It's the overhang of new building in the order book," says shipping expert Peter Illingworth.

Saving grace

The only saving grace in the oil shipping business is China. Chinese companies are buying up new ships as oil imports continue to rise.

"(China) is a great engine for demand growth," says Illingworth. "The reason to be cheerful about China is that the country is increasing its seaborne imports of crude dramatically."

China is increasing its crude imports by about 17 percent per year, according to Clarkson. The extra demand is welcome at a time when the US is reducing seaborne imports.

The silver lining may be that most industry insiders expect 2013 to be the absolute bottom of the shipping rates cycle, while some companies have figured out ways to stave off the bad times by raising their rates and slowing down their ships, in effect cutting supply.

By the end of the year, supply growth could slip below demand growth. That would be the beginning of the turnaround and good news for the industry - the first in a long time, says Peter Wijaya Surya, managing director of Aptus Maritime Ltd.

"We have gone through the biggest bust in the history of shipping," he says.

 

Editor's picks
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 毛片免费视频网站 | 亚洲国内精品自在线影视 | 精品一区二区三区视频 | 国产系列在线播放 | 欧美人与鲁交大毛片免费 | 欧美私人网站 | 日p免费视频 | 国内精品小视频福利网址 | 男人天堂视频在线 | 国产原创系列在线 | 四虎免费大片aⅴ入口 | 欧美一区二区三区在线观看 | 99国产精品热久久久久久夜夜嗨 | 免费一级特黄欧美大片勹久久网 | 国产最新自拍 | 日本加勒比视频在线观看 | 国产三级日本三级美三级 | 精品视频在线观看一区二区三区 | 国内交换一区二区三区 | 网红主播大尺度精品福利视频 | 日韩亚洲国产综合久久久 | 亚洲精品久久玖玖玖玖 | 怡红院在线a男人的天堂 | 精品一区二区高清在线观看 | 国产日韩欧美网站 | 国产免费一区二区三区在线 | 欧美午夜不卡 | 爱爱爱久久久久久久 | 中文字幕日本不卡 | 欧美私人网站 | 日本特黄a级高清免费酷网 日本特黄特色 | 欧美高清在线精品一区 | 中文国产成人精品久久一 | 美日韩一区二区 | 九一国产精品视频 | 欧美孕交视频 | 亚洲精品欧洲一区二区三区 | 222aaa免费国产在线观看 | 中国一级特黄真人毛片 | 日日a.v拍夜夜添久久免费 | 暖暖免费高清日本一区二区三区 |