The shipping industry is up against serious challenges in the next 12 months, and those with a great deal of resilience in terms of securing funding and having a long-term plan will have more chances of doing well, said Moore Stephens, a UK-based global consulting firm.
“More than ever, shipping will be an industry for long-term players. Operating costs increased in 2011, while the global economic climate deteriorated at a rate outpaced only by the growth of sovereign debt in some eurozone countries,” said Julian Wilkinson, head of the company’s shipping industry group.
Noting that markets are languishing and likely to fall further, Wilkinson predicted that more owners and operators will seek to renegotiate agreements with their financiers or with shipyards as finance and operating costs balloon and overtonnaging “remains the spectre at the feast, were there a feast to enjoy.”
Shipping may not turn the corner in 2012, Wilkinson added, and expressed doubts that anybody knows where the corner is. Governments might have to intervene this year by rescuing ailing yards or reviewing tonnage tax regimes.
But Wilkinson declared that demand for seaborne trade will continue. “Shipping’s glass is still, remarkably, more half-full than half-empty. Many owners, managers and charterers are reasonably confident of making a major new investment or development in 2012.”
“In shipping, those who can remember the past and have a plan for the future will be the ones who fare best,” Wilkinson said.
Photo by Martin Pettitt
