Flexibility is vital for future ship design
Posted on | August 17, 2010 | No Comments
A memorable description of how a ship is planned, designed and built is in “The Building of the Ship”, written by a poet named Longfellow in the late 1840s:
“Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind
Wrestle!” ……
Ships, as the poet indicated, are designed and built to a long-term plan.
In those distant days before the summer of 2007, we lived in a more ordered age, in which many commercial people willingly made long-term plans.
Shipowners used computer forecasts to predict future market patterns with confidence they could rationally foresee the employment, or “career” of a projected newbuilding.
However, the financial crisis has damaged that sense of certainty. While the fear of doom that descended in the autumn of 2008 has abated, it has left an awareness that the shipping business is, like the rest of our world, an unpredictable one.
Maritime trade is a cyclical industry, of course. The rhythm, if there is one, of seaborne trade is subject to the supply and demand of those commodities that move across the world’s oceans.
Growth and profitability are also driven by the physical distance between where a cargo is produced and the place of its consumption or delivery. Market capacity is largely a factor of the number, type, and availability of existing ships.
It is important, in designing a ship, to accurately forecast the trends in the markets that it will serve, and to guide the hand and mind of its architect in keeping with its planned future use.
Case in point: Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, is planning 33 of the biggest bulkers ever constructed.
These VLOCs may not, of course, have an overwhelming effect ten or fifteen years from now. They may not even be wise investments. They do, however, reflect an appraisal of future market needs. They also reveal a prediction of resale value during various stages of each vessel’s life.
The current orderbook of dry bulk newbuildings seems to be heavily weighted toward Capesizes, with nearly half the DWT on order being made up of this type. This would indicate that the prevailing wisdom of the market anticipates that most cargoes will move to China or other consumers over long hauls.
The planner may need to consider that terminals may in future suffer from increased congestion and/or insufficient capacity, and that the planned vessel might profitably be more efficient as a self-unloader; that the density of future bulk cargoes, and therefore the future vessel’s cubic capacity, may vary, and should be expected to differ from that required today.
Another planning factor worth pondering is future crewing trends. It is likely that as crews become reduced in size, accommodation and other spaces may be reconfigured.
An example, from history: in the tanker sector, the effect of forward planning, and changes in the nature of the cargo, can be seen in the evolution of the Aframax class.
This vessel type originated from the freight pricing scale, or average freight rate assessment (AFRA), employed by large oil companies transporting crude oil on their own tankers. The Aframax class of vessel was initially designed to carry 500,000-barrel parcels, a standard oil trading size in 1992. However, as time passed, crude oil grades became heavier; the oil majors began to charter more, and own less. The Aframax “label” came to grow from roughly 79,999 DWT to an average size in 2010 of 120,000 DWT.
But now, current indications show many future crude parcels will be made up of lighter, sweeter, low- sulphur grades. This may indicate that the future of the Aframax lies in a different market than the one for which the type was originally designed. Aframaxes now on the drawing boards are being designed for reduced draught, to permit greater port flexibility. In 1995, the average Aframax design draught was 13.8 metres; it peaked at 15 metres in 2008; but has declined to 14.8 in 2010.
A careful study of market trends will reward the scholarly!
Finally, it cannot be repeated too often that regulatory intervention will increasingly be a determinant of design. Twenty years ago, the U. S. Oil Pollution Act initiated the mandatory retirement of single-hull tankers. The potential for drastic change today is shown in the NOX air emission requirements coming into effect in 2016. These dictate an 80% NOX reduction in emission control areas.
The baleful decision facing the planner and designer is: fuel-switching or scrubbing, or maybe a mix? The market in crystal balls has an excellent future.
Comments
Leave a Reply