“This year saw historic lows or near lows in almost all market sectors except tankers markets, which defied predictions, but despite an oversupply of new tonnage, they remained strong, but fragile on the back of an unforeseen and unprecedented fall in oil prices,” BRS president, Tim Jones, said.
Jones claimed that the global realization that the energy appetite should be restrained is bad news for shipping as 40 per cent of world transportation are raw materials such as coal, oil and gas, noting further that the situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the consolidation phase in the industry has now been replaced by elimination, with shipping companies going under, leaving their assets to new owners and yards closed and rationalized.
He said: “We are waking up to a maritime sector that is being dimensioned to meet the demand of an adolescent China with mature Western economies weaned off energy consumption, and expected globalization of trade. Today, there is a realization that it is not only the cost of energy that will drive world trade, but the consequences of global warming.”
