n May 2004, a queue of barges began forming in a windswept corner of the port of Antwerp. The terminals further up the channel were so busy handling an unexpected surge in imports from China that they had virtually no spare capacity. By July, barge operators were not only delivering shipping containers to customers very late but, to cope with the significant extra costs of delays, also imposing congestion surcharges on customers.
China’s integration into the global economy – the most important economic trend of the past 10 years – was starting to push up transport costs in a world ill-equipped to meet the challenge. Events in the Belgian port were replicated worldwide, as ports from the US west coast to eastern Australia and even Dubai’s vast, modern Jebel Ali struggled to handle a sudden growth in seaborne trade. Volumes of containerised – mainly manufactured – goods shipped worldwide went on to rise 50 per cent annually between 2002 and 2011, according to Clarksons, the London-based shipbroker.
Yet it is only now, eight years later, that the most far-reaching effect of the surge in seaborne trade volumes is making itself felt. The jump in earnings it produced for container ships, dry bulk carriers and oil tankers encouraged many shipowners to order far more vessels than could ever have been needed. Many have been delivered this year or will be delivered in 2012, into shipping markets growing far more slowly than when the boom was at its height. This year alone, according to London-based Braemar Seascope shipbrokers, total deliveries of Capesize dry bulk carriers – the largest kind – are expected to reach 220, increasing worldwide fleet capacity by nearly 21 per cent. Another 230 are due in 2012.