BIMCO President speaks on the “road to recovery” for the dry bulk market

Overview

“Scrapping ships and no new builds is the fastest road to recovery for the dry bulk market” BIMCO President Philippe Louis-Dreyfus comments on BIMCO’s latest market analysis

Scrapping ships and no new builds is the fastest road to recovery for the dry bulk market

BIMCO President Philippe Louis-Dreyfus comments on BIMCO’s latest market analysis

The dry bulk market could become profitable again in 2019 – but only if a series of extremely tough and sustained measures are taken by shipowners, year on year. This is the message from BIMCO President, Philippe Louis-Dreyfus, ahead of Posidonia 2016 as BIMCO releases new market analysis – “The Road to Recovery” – on what the dry bulk sector must do to return to profitability.

BIMCO has developed a new analysis model designed to highlight the actions needed for struggling shipping markets to recover – and to be able to track the progress of the recovery. Using this model, BIMCO has developed a “zero supply side growth” scenario for recovery of the dry bulk market. This scenario requires shipowners to neutralise the delivery of new ships every year by scrapping an equal amount of capacity from the existing fleet.

Commenting on the new analysis Mr Louis-Dreyfus described the dry bulk market as being in a “terrible” condition. He said:

We cannot expect to be helped by growth in demand, the recovery of the market is wholly and exclusively in the hands of us, the shipowners.

The medicine is not going to be easy to take, zero supply growth has been achieved only three times in recent history, during the 1980s and 1990s. The task ahead of us is huge and must be sustained year after year.

We need to demolish an enormous number of ships and refrain from building new ships.

BIMCO President Philippe Louis-Dreyfus also insists that scrapping older ships is not only a good way forward to a better market, it is also an essential measure in favour of the environment and, last but not least, the safety of crews.

The first piece of analysis using this model focuses on the dry bulk sector, but BIMCO will later also use the model to analyse fundamental changes in other shipping markets.

ENDS

The analysis is available to read and download on BIMCO’s website.

For more details, please contact Gemma Wilkie, Communications Director at BIMCO on:

(Direct) +45 4436 6836, (Mobile) +45 2442 9781 or pr@bimco.org.

Notes to Editors

  • BIMCO is the world’s largest international shipping association, with 2,200 members in around 130 countries.
  • We provide a wide range of services to our global membership – which includes shipowners, operators, managers, brokers and agents.
  • BIMCO’s core objective is to facilitate the commercial operations of our members by developing standard contracts and clauses, and providing quality information, advice and education.
  • BIMCO promotes fair business practices, free trade and open access to markets and we are a strong advocate for the harmonisation and standardisation of all shipping related activity.
  • BIMCO actively promotes the application of globally agreed regulatory instruments – we are accredited as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) with all relevant United Nations agencies and other regulatory entities.
Gemma Wilkie
By Gemma Wilkie
in Copenhagen, DK

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