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Weak economic activity, a 10.5% increase in domestic coal mining, and a recovery in coal imports from Mongolia via rail alleviated coal shipments to China in 2022.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global container market grew only 1.5% from 171.0 million TEU in 2019 to 173.5 million TEU in 2023. Without the pandemic, that figure would have been 24.6 million higher, landing at 198.1 million in 2023.
Despite floods in November, the Australian wheat production estimate for the 2022/23 marketing year (July 2022 to June 2023) has been increased by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Australian wheat exports could rise 9.8% this marketing year driven by strong harvests and strained global supplies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, liner operators increased the average sailing speed by up to 4% due to strong demand and widespread port congestion. Today, the situation is very different and in the first quarter of 2023 the average sailing speed has slowed to 13.8 knots, down 4% y/y, and could drop by 10% before 2025.
High energy prices in Europe have shifted aluminium production to China. Due to China’s increasingly depleted bauxite reserves, this shift has resulted in an increase in bauxite shipments, benefitting the capesize segment. Guinea, the world’s largest exporter of bauxite, accounts for around half of traded volumes and has seen a 14.9% increase in bauxite shipments so far in 2022.
The reshaping of global crude tanker markets continued in 2023. In 2022, sanctions shifted Russia’s exports from Europe to Asia while OPEC production cuts in 2023 increased the Americas’ share of exports. Brazil’s oil production increased by 12% year-on-year in 2023 while crude tanker exports rose 19%.
In 2022, Chinese shipyards reached a market share of 47% and for the first time exceeded the combined market share of Japanese and South Korean shipyards.
On 9 August, the Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister announced that 71 coal miners failed to meet their domestic market obligations, and that 48 of them are now banned from exporting coal. The ban comes into force just as the EU ban on Russian coal takes full effect and demand for non-Russian coal increases.
China is the world’s largest importer of crude oil and Russia is the second largest crude exporter. Much of the crude oil trade between the two countries, however, is piped and the short distance from Far East Russia to China also limits the impact on demand for crude oil tankers. Still, a change in the Russia to China dirty trade has the potential to impact tanker tonne miles demand as it could come at the expense of longer trade lanes.
From mid-2020, global container export volumes saw strong growth, and combined with increasing port congestion it caused supply chain challenges and historically high liner operator financial results which have been the norm since. In September 2022, however, container volumes dropped below volumes recorded in the same month in 2019 for the first time since mid-2020 and statistics just released by Container Trade Statistics have confirmed the trend.
