Suggesting ways and means for dry bulk companies to self-assess their performance
Intercargo issued the fifth edition of Benchmarking Bulk Carriers 2010-2011, including an extensive amount of data which can be used to develop a greater understanding of the industry today.
These data also suggest ways and means for dry bulk companies to self-assess their performance against actual and expected industry trends and hence to react to the expectations of the regulators and potential customers alike in areas as diverse as safety, piracy and the trends associated with corporate inexperience.
Key findings and implementations include among other things.
Age profile: Intercargo uses empirical evidence to show that the quality of the owner and their culture is of most importance than the age of the vessels they control. During last years the average age of the fleet increased marginally to 13.1 years. 20.24% of the dry bulk fleet is more than 25 years old. Vessels over 25 years have an average DPI of 6.11 compare to the sub-25 year sector where the average DPI is 2.32.
Casualties: Seven bulk carriers were lost in 2010. Every one of the 44 lives lost was due to cargo related issues: specifically, the carriage of nickel ore. It is important every owner to re-double its efforts to improve the safe carriage of hazardous material in bulk.
Class: IACS members (DPI: 3.04) continue to significantly out-perform non IACS members (DPI: 7.22). Class Related Deficiencies continued to remain insignificant compared to the overall number.
Flags: during 2010, saw a marked consolidation with 11 Registries now accounting for 93% of all dry vessels.
Intercargo entered ship: Intercargo entered vessels accounted for just 5.88% of detentions in 2010- the second lowest figure since 2004 with DPI rating of 1.5 against 2.59 for non- Intercargo entered vessels. Intercargo entered ships continue to out-perform others
Negative performance indicator: Collisions and groundings both increased in 2010 but propulsion related incidents decreased- presumably in response to less frenetic trading than was the case in the previous year.
P&I :Detention and DPI data suggests that International Group P&I Clubs out-perform other P&I organizations.
Port State Control: Overall, the number of detentions fell slightly, from 665 in 2009 to 646 in 2010. This was even more noticeable when compared against fleet growth in the intervening year. But there were very distinctive regional variations, with the numbers of dry bulkers detained in 2010 reducing in the Paris MOU area but markedly increasing in the Tokyo and Indian Ocean regions where trade increased.
Piracy Special Report: Pirates attacked on 43 bulk carriers in the six months between November 2010 and April 2011, of which at least 19 or more, were repulsed through effective implementation of the Best Management Practices. Of the 38 bulk carriers seized since 2008, a below average Company DPI rating of 6.48 suggests a correlation between a quality culture and a propensity to be seized.
For more details, please refer to Benchmarking Bulk Carriers 2010-2011, 5th edition issued by Intercargo.
