(12)--MaritimeEconomics航运经济与政策.pdf

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1、 12.1 INTRODUCTION TO SPECIALIZED SHIPPINGWhat is specialized shipping?Companies transporting the bulk cargoes discussed in Chapter 11 trade in perfectlycompetitive markets where hundreds of similar ships compete for homogeneous cargoes on an equal basis.There is little shipowners can do to differen

2、tiate their service,so they rely on the entrepreneurial skills needed to charter and trade the bulkcargoes.But some cargoes such as chemicals,gas,refrigerated cargo,forest products,vehicles,heavy lift and people are more demanding to transport,offering transportproviders an opportunity to improve th

3、eir service by investing in specialized ships and services.This chapter discusses five groups of commodity trades which fall into this category:chemicals,liquefied gas,refrigerated cargo,unit load cargoes and passenger shipping.Table 12.1 summarizes the fleets of ships used to transport them:chemica

4、l tankers;gastankers;refrigerated ships and containers;the unit load fleet which includes open hatchbulk carriers,ro-ros,pure car carriers(PCCs),MPP vessels and heavy lift;and the pas-senger fleet of ferries and cruise vessels.In total we are dealing with about 10,000 cargoand passenger vessels,acco

5、unting for about 25%of the deep sea fleet.These are someof the most expensive ships to build and they tie up a significant portion of the shippingindustrys capital,so it is an important business.Our aim is to discuss the services theyprovide and to explain how their various markets work.Each special

6、ized trade has its own distinctive features arising from the character of thecargo and the way transport providers have adapted to improve their performance in carry-ing it.Chemical parcel tankers transport specialized liquid cargoes including chemicals,The Transport ofSpecializedCargoesIt is diffic

7、ult though not impossible to be both lower cost and differentiated with respect to competitors.Achieving both is difficult because providing unique performance,quality,or service is inherently more costly,in most instances,than seeking only to be comparable to competitors in such attributes.(Michael

8、 Porter,The Competitive Advantage of Nations,1990,p.38)12 vegetable oils and oilproducts which must betransported separately,often to rigorous safetystandards.Most havemultiple tanks with seg-regated cargo handlingand safety features tomeet the regulatory codesfor hazardous cargoes.The gas tankers t

9、ransportliquefied gases at verylow temperatures,partic-ularly LNG,LPG,andchemical gases such asammonia and ethylenewhich must be liquefiedfor transport.Refrigeratedships(reefers)transportperishable commoditiesincluding frozen meat,fruit,vegetables and dairyproducts,and are the sub-ject of fierce com

10、petitionbetween container serv-ices.Unit load vesselsship the large generalcargo units which cannottravel by container,includ-ing forest products,cars and heavy lift items.Finally,the passenger vessels carry peopleeither for transport or pleasure.The economics of these specialized trades is quite su

11、btle,so before delving into detailwe will briefly examine the economic framework within which specialized shippingcompanies operate.Specialized ships come in all shapes and sizes and we will discusstheir design features in Chapter 14,but there are three areas where investors can tailorthe ship desig

12、n for a specific cargo.The first is improved cargo handling.For example,chemical tankers allow small chemical parcels to be handled separately,without risk ofcontamination,or corrosive damage to the vessel.Or wheeled cargoes,which are animportant specialist shipping sector,can be handled more effici

13、ently with ro-ro access.Other examples are wide hatches with advanced crane systems and specialized handlingsystems.In each case the shipping company invests to improve cargo-handling econom-ics and boost the productivity of the ship.Second,improved cargo stowage minimizesdeadfreight and reduces dam

14、age.Fitting refrigeration systems for perishable cargoes and or protective coating to prevent the cargo from corroding the hull are470THE TRANSPORT OF SPECIALIZED CARGOESCHAPTER12Table 12.1 Specialised Shipping Fleet 1 Jan 2006DesignNumberCapacityUnits1.Chemical tankers(see Table 12.3)Chemical Parce

15、l 1k dwt1,015 15,274 M dwtChemical Bulk179 2,395 M dwtChemical products682 19,942 M dwtUnknown type699 5,703 M dwtTotal2,575 43,314 2.Gas TankersLPG(see Table 12.5)993 14,612 000 m3LNG193 22,871 000 m3Total1,186 37,4833.Refrigerated ships Refrigerated 10k cuft1,242 333 M Cu ftContainer899 M Cu ft4.U

16、nit load vessels Open hatch bulk 486 16,508 M dwtRo-Ro1,040 9,183 M dwtPCC560 7,848 M dwtMultipurpose(10k dwt)741 13,151 M dwtHeavy Lift193 3,113 M dwtTotal3,020 49,803 5.Passenger vesselsFerry2,300 Lane lengthCruise235 BerthsTotal2,535 Total10,558 Source:Clarkson Research Services LtdNote:ship numb

17、ers differ from Table 2.5 due to differencesin the lower size limits and date related possibilities.Third,the system can be adapted to integrate with the customersinland transport operation.For example,a shipping company transporting cars is a vitallink in the manufacturers distribution chain and th

18、is has resulted in some specialistshipping companies entering the terminal and storage business.Providing these services requires an appropriate management structure and proven sector-specificexpertise which acts as a barrier to entry,often leading to a higher concentration of ownership.As a result

19、pools and cooperative arrangements are more common in thetransport of specialized cargo,for example cars,chemicals and gas.The specialized shipping modelThe starting point is not,however,the ships or the transport system,but the market.No matter how clever the hull design or cargo-handling systems a

20、re,if the companycannot make a profit the venture will fail.These specialized cargoes can usually beshipped in several different ways,so there are nearly always competitors.For example,chilled cargo can be shipped in refrigerated ships,container-ships,or air freight.All three compete and market econ

21、omics determine who gets the cargo.Some chilledcargoes such as raspberries are delicate and favour air freight,whilst others such deciduous fruits,which are less demanding and more price sensitive,gravitate towardsthe reefer ships.Specialist shipping companies search out and exploit these difference

22、s.If the economics works and the venture thrives,a new specialist segment emerges,and most of the trades reviewed in this chapter developed like this.But sometimes theeconomics does not work.The ships are sold to the highest bidder and work out theirphysical lives in services for which they were not

23、 really designed.This complicatesthings for analysts because commodity flows cannot be neatly matched against the fleet of specialist ships,but it is a reality of the business which we must accept from the outsetThe forest products trade provides a good example of how the economics of special-izatio

24、n works in practice.Like most of the specialized commodities in this chapter,forest products are semi-manufactures,and the trade mainly travels in units such aspackaged lumber,pulp bales,rolls of paper,packaged plywood and particle board.Thisis high-value cargo,worth up to$1,000 a tonne,and vulnerab

25、le to damage.Conventional bulk carriers are not very efficient at handling and stowing unit load car-goes and forest products carriers(FPCs)target this weakness.To improve stowage theyhave box-shaped holds and hatches which extend to their full width,allowing the FPCto load about 20%more cargo than

26、a conventional bulk carrier of the same deadweight.Cargo handling is also improved by the open holds,which allow packages to be droppeddirectly into place.As a result cargo-handling rates in excess of 450 tonnes per hour canbe achieved,compared with 250 tonnes per hour for a conventional bulk carrie

27、r.1However these improvements increase the capital cost by 2550%above a conventionalbulk carrier of the same deadweight capacity.Is it worth the money?Figure 12.1 compares the cost per tonne of transporting packaged forest products in a conventional 47,000 deadweight bulk carrier(the dashed line)and

28、 a 47,000 dead-weight FPC(the solid line),assuming the performance levels listed at the bottom of 471INTRODUCTION TO SPECIALIZED SHIPPING12.1CHAPTER12 the figure.The averagecost per tonne is shown onthe vertical axis,and thetonnes of cargo loaded intothe ship on the horizontalaxis.With a 10,000 tonn

29、eload the FPC has a highercost per tonne($42.30/tonnecompared with$39.70/tonne),but as the cargosize increases the gap nar-rows due to the FPCsfaster cargo handling.Withboth ships loading 24,000tonnes of cargo the con-ventional bulk carrier isfull,but thanks to its openholds the FPC keeps goingand l

30、oads 27,500 tonnes ofcargo,at which point itsunit cost has fallen to$17.20 per tonne,under-cutting the bulk carrier costs of$18.90 per tonne by 9%.Although this calculation willvary with the precise assumptions,it makes the important point that investing in a tai-lored ship does not necessarily prod

31、uce decisively cheaper transport.A better way tolook at the investment is as a way of providing a better service for the same cost.In thisexample the FPCs open holds and sophisticated cargo-handling gear offer a faster serv-ice with less risk of damage for9%less than the conventional bulk carrier.Wh

32、en dealing with high-value semi-processed productssuch as chipboard,plywood andnewsprint this can be decisive.In summary,specialized ship-ping companies operate on thetwo fronts:first,by undercuttingthe conventional operator on unittransport cost if they can;andsecond,by obtaining a premiumover the

33、freight rate offered by theconventional operator by offeringa differentiated service,as illus-trated in Figure 12.2.Neither iseasy.In our example,to match472THE TRANSPORT OF SPECIALIZED CARGOESCHAPTER12Figure 12.1Specialized shipping competition modelFigure 12.2Specialized shipping model the convent

34、ional bulk carriers cost the FPC operator must run a tight voyage schedule,with only six days allowed for cargo handling.But success also depends on the customers willingness to pay for the service offered,which is where the high value anddelicacy of the cargo come into play.With cargo worth$1,000 p

35、er tonne,exporters maybe willing to pay a freight premium for a fast service with good-quality ships and min-imal damage risk.Arguably,specialized shipping sectors are the ones where shippersare prepared to pay this freight premium.This is the perspective from which we willapproach the specialist se

36、gments in the following sections.12.2 THE SEA TRANSPORT OF CHEMICALSThe demand for chemical transportThe major chemical trades are between the USA,Europe and Asia,India,the MiddleEast and South America.Most specialist chemicals are used locally,but some areexported in response to local stock imbalan

37、ces,or to areas where there is no local production of a particular chemical.Each year chemical tankers transport about 60 mil-lion tonnes of organic and inorganic chemicals and another 4045 million tonnes of vegetable oils,alcohols,molasses and lubricating oils2.Clean petroleum productsand lube oils

38、 also provide an important source of employment for the less sophisticatedvessels in the chemical carrier fleet and a large proportion of the fleet can switchbetween these trades and chemicals or edible oils.Since there are so many productsinvolved,a good starting point is an explanation of how they

39、 are produced and used(see also Figure 11.6 which describes the energy transport model).Organic chemicals(also known as petrochemicals)contain carbon and are madefrom crude oil,natural gas or coal.The two main product groups are the olefins whichinclude ethylene,propylene and butadiene;and the aroma

40、tics,named for their peculiarodour,which include benzene,toluene,xylene(known collectively as BTX)andstyrene.These are used to manufacture virtually all products made with plastics andartificial fibres.Inorganic chemicals do not contain carbon and are made by combining chemical ele-ments.Phosphoric

41、acid,sulphuric acid and caustic soda are three of the most common.Phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid are used in the fertilizer industry,whilst caustic soda isused in the aluminium industry.They present several transport problems.One is that theyare very dense:phosphoric acid has a specific gravity

42、of 1.8;caustic soda liquor 1.5;sul-phuric acid 1.71.8 and nitric acid 1.5.Second,they are corrosive to metals such as iron,zinc and aluminium and must be carried in tanks coated with stainless steel,rubber or acid-proof paints.The others are less demanding in normal concentrations.The chemical tanke

43、rswhich carry these cargoes generally load and discharge through stainless steel pipes withtypical handling rates of 600 tons per hour.In port the acids are stored in steel cisterns witha rubber lining standing in concrete tanks that can hold the contents in case of leakage.Vegetable oils are derive

44、d from seeds of plants and used extensively both for edibleand industrial purposes.Animal fats and oils are also transported.They include palm oiland soya bean oil.473THE SEA TRANSPORT OF CHEMICALS12.2CHAPTER12 Molasses,a by-product of the sugar refining operations,is a thick brown syrup whichis fer

45、mented into alcohols such as rum but is traded mainly as an animal feed or in theproduction of organic chemicals.These chemicals,especially the organics,often move in small parcels which must be handled separately and transported in segregated tanks which are meticulouslycleaned between cargoes.An i

46、dea of what this means in practice is provided by Table 12.2 which shows a sample of 3,000 chemical parcels(a parcel is an individualconsignment).The average parcel was 1,475 tonnes but for different products the average ranges from 3,000 tonnes for caustic products to 279 tonnes for acetate.Overhal

47、f the parcels are less than 500 tons and there are over a hundred different chemicaland oil commodities in the sample(not all shown separately),some recognisable products like brake fluid,or liquid paraffin butmany others that the average layman wouldnot recognise.Chemicalparcels of this sort aregen

48、erally transported insmall tankers under10,000 dwt or in largeparceltankers withmany separate tanks.Tank containers are alsosometimes used forparcels under 200 tonnes.The range of vessel sizesis illustrated in Table 12.2which shows that,forexample,the average2925 tonne parcel ofCaustic Products was

49、carried in a 5736 dwtship,occupying 51%ofthe cargo capacity.Butsome other commoditiessuch as Paraffin wax,Toluene and Acetate travelled in parcel tankers of 35,000 dwt or more,occupying only 12%ofthe cargo space.Thistrade is also geographicallycomplex with cargoesloading in the Middle East,474THE TR

50、ANSPORT OF SPECIALIZED CARGOESCHAPTER12Table 12.2 Sample of chemical parcels by sizeCargo parcel size analysisCargo product group Average parcel size,tonnes Cargo%ShipCaustic products292551%Styrene products219535%Formaldehyde185254%MEG183612%Ethylene products148540%Paraffin wax12983%Polypropylene123