I am fairly confident in stating that in the modern era of commercial shipping there has never been such a skewed age profile of the main sectors. Something has to give as the tanker and dry bulk fleet – largely shut out from this decade’s ordering boom – will become vintage fast while containers and LNG go through a once in a generation fleet rejuvenation. As ever, I’m indebted to the brilliant folk at Clarksons Research for spelling out in chart form what I am trying to get across. To be clear, the LNG fleet accounts for just 7% of the trading global merchant fleet and yet has three times as much of that when it comes to the global orderbook. Conversely, dry bulk – shipping’s largest sector by some distance – has an orderbook that is pretty much the same as the gas one, ie not nearly enough to rejuvenate what is a rapidly ageing fleet. Both the tanker and the dry bulk fleets swelled dramatically in the years in and just after the global financial crisis. A very large tranche of these two sectors will hit 20 years of age soon and yet available newbuild slots at established yards are being pushed out into 2028 and beyond. No wonder investors are willing to shell out top dollar for modern tonnage. And while we are aware of significant shipyard expansion and reactivation it is worth bearing in mind that, yes, shipyard capacity at the big three shipbuilding nations of China, South Korea and Japan might have leapt an impressive 20% in the space of just the past year, but the fact remains that today’s capacity is still some 30% below the peak experienced around 15 years ago. As the 2020s progress there is a clear bottleneck emerging for certain shipping sectors. Contents Front page: Shipbuilders struggle with productionEditor’s Comment: Skewed segments stunt growthJuly 2024 ReviewMarkets TankersMarkets Dry BulkMarkets ContainersAnalyst AbstractMonthly BrokerFeature: What happens if Trump winsInterview: Baseblue’s Lars NielsenDataOpinion: Fossil fuels here to stay TagsSplash Extra Archive Splash Extra July 2024