Soundings

Global Shipbuilding Capacity Has Risen in Last 10 Years, Now at Overcapacity. There has been a large increase of the global building capacity of shipyards over the last 10 years, according to a report by RS Platou ASA (Oslo, Norway). Deliveries have risen from 18 million compensated gross tons (cgt) in 2002 to a peak of 44 million cgt in 2011 from shipyards building tonnage more than 30,000 deadweight tonnes. Last year, deliveries were down by 10 percent. From 2002 to 2011, deliveries from Chinese shipbuilders increased 13-fold, and they delivered 40 percent of all merchant tonnage in 2011. Korean shipbuilders have also increased deliveries of tonnage from 2002 to 2011 by 165 percent, managing to maintain a market share of about 35 percent. Japan, the third-largest shipbuilding nation today, has seen a 50 percent rise in deliveries for 2002 to 2011. The current estimated global capacity of 35 million cgt is more than needed for the next couple of years. The overcapacity in the merchant fleet is expected to be 6 percent this year. The International Monetary Fund’s long-term GDP growth forecast of 4.5 percent should result in a tonnage demand growth of about 7 percent. In a scenario with 7 percent average growth in tonnage demand after 2016 and a need to replace older tonnage, shipyards will need to deliver an average of about 50 million cgt per year to maintain a balanced market for the merchant fleet.

Developing Economies Will Spur Global Submarine Market Growth. In 2013, the global submarine market is estimated to value $14.4 billion and is expected to grow to $21.7 billion by 2023, representing a compound annual growth rate of 4.2 percent during the forecast period, according to a MarketResearch.com report entitled “The Global Submarine Market 2013-2023.” The market consists of three categories: SSN (nuclear attack submarine), SSBN (ballistic missile submarine) and SSK (diesel-electric attack submarine). The global expenditure on SSNs is expected to account for a major share of approximately 41 percent during the forecast period. The remaining expenditure is accounted for by SSBN and SSK with shares of 33 percent and 26 percent, respectively. The economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and the developing economies of Southeast Asia are becoming financially able to fund submarine capabilities. The global submarine industry requires skilled labor to design submarines and provide maintenance and upgrades, but there is a shortage of skilled professionals, such as reactor engineers and scientists. The U.K.’s submarine industry, for instance, is currently facing a 14 percent shortage of civilian safety experts and a 7 percent shortage of submarine-reactor engineers.

USCG Accepts Nine AMS. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has accepted nine ballast water treatment systems as Alternate Management Systems (AMS) in compliance with its March 2012 final rule for Standards for Living Organisms in Ships’ Ballast Water Discharged in U.S. Waters: Alfa Laval Tumba AB’s (Tumba, Sweden) PureBallast Models 250 to 2500; Alfa Laval Tumba AB’s PureBallast Models 2.0 and 2.0Ex; Ecochlor Inc.’s (Maynard, Massachusetts) Ecochlor Series 75, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300; Hyde Marine’s (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Guardian HG-60, -100, -150, -200, -250, -300, -400, -450, -500, -600, -700, -800, -900, -1000, -1250, -1350, -1400, -1488, -1600, -2000, -2500, -2975, -4000, -5000 and -6000; NK Co. Ltd.’s (Busan, South Korea) BlueBallast NK-O3-010, -015, -030, -040, -050, -075, -100, -150, -200, -250, -300 and -400; Qingdao Headway Technology Co. Ltd.’s (Qingdao, China) OceanGuard; RWO Marine Water Technology (Bremen, Germany), Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies’ (Marlow, England) CleanBallast -150, -200, -250, -300, -350, -400, -450, -500, -500-1, -750, -1000, -1250, -1500, -1750, -2000, -2250, -2500, -2750, -3000, -3250, -3500 and -3750; Severn Trent De Nora LLC’s (Sugar Land, Texas) BalPure Models BP-500, -675, -1000, -2000, -2650, -3000, -4000 and -5000; and SunRui’s (Qingdao) BalClor BC-300 and BC-1000. AMS acceptance is a temporary designation given to a ballast water treatment system approved by a foreign administration. Vessel operators may use an AMS to manage their ballast water discharges in lieu of ballast water exchange while the treatment system undergoes USCG approval testing. An AMS may be used for up to five years after the ship’s ballast water discharge standard compliance date specified in the final rule. USCG continues to review applications for AMS acceptance and will announce further determinations.

World’s Oldest Port Found. A French-Egyptian team has discovered an ancient harbor about 4,500 years old at Wadi el-Jarf along the coast of the Red Sea, Egypt’s State Information Service announced. The find has been dated to the pharaoh Khufu’s reign, which lasted from 2,575 to 2,465 B.C.E. The harbor “predates by more than 1,000 years any other port structure known in the world,” according to Pierre Tallet, an Egyptologist at Paris-Sorbonne University who led the team that made the discovery. The expedition, organized by the French Institute of Oriental Archeology, unearthed 40 papyri at the site, representing the oldest papyri found in the country and detailing the daily lives of Egyptians who lived during Khufu’s era. Egypt’s State Information Service said that the port may have connected copper, turquoise and other mineral mining operations in South Sinai to the Egyptian mainland. Tallet thinks the harbor could also have been a starting point to reach Punt, which may be in what is now known as Somalia. J.G. Wilkinson first noted in 1832 that ancient structures existed at Wadi el-Jarf: 30 galleries “measuring on average 65 feet long, 10 feet wide and 7 feet high.” Archeologists did not explore the site systematically until Tallet’s team began in 2011, Tallet said. The survey used Wilkinson’s description of the galleries as a starting point.

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