At the IUMI winter press conference, Don Harrell, Aspen Head on International Insurance & Global Head of Marine, Facts & Figures Committee chair, IUMI, said that IUMI was “right in the middle” of gathering information, and that full figures on cargo, hull and offshore energy would be released in about a month.
In the interim, Harrell noted that ship earnings were up by about 14% from 2016 to 2017, and that an improvement in the world economy had helped seaborne trade grown by about 4.1% year on year to 11.6bn tons. This was the fastest rate of growth since 2012, he said.
LNG trade was up 11% from 2016 to 2017, and the above-trend growth in trade in Asia-Pacific had continued.
Fleet growth continued, at 3.3%, although Harrell said that the rate of growth was slowing. Demolitions were down 22.9m gt, and there had been a moderate recovery in newbuilds. Harrell said that there had been record levels of sales and purchase activity, with Greek buyers particularly active in 2017. Trends towards consolidation continued, Harrell said.