EMSA issued Equasis Annual Report 2016 providing a picture of the world’s merchant fleet in the last year, derived from data contained in the Equasis database, and examining the structure and characteristics of the fleet and its performance.
Merchant Fleet Population highlights
- By number, the Equasis fleet is dominated by small and medium sized ships up to 24.999 GT (80%).
- Small ships alone represent 37% by number, although around only 1% by tonnage.
- Tugs (20.3%), general cargo ships (18.3%), oil and chemical tankers (14.7%) and bulk carriers (12.9%) are the four most common ship types by number, representing about two thirds of the Equasis fleet. Most of these are small and medium sized ships.
- Within the large and very large categories, bulk carriers (43.1%), oil and chemical tankers (25.2%) and container ships (16.2%) represent approximately 85% of the fleet in number in these ship size categories.
- In terms of tonnage, the large and very large size categories represent 81% of the Equasis fleet, with oil and chemical tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships jointly dominating both categories at 84.2% (large) and 83% (very large).
- The most modern fleets are made up of the biggest ships in tonnage. Looking back at the statistics of the previous years, it is clear that the younger ships are bigger than their predecessors.
Report data also show that for the targeted flag States, general cargo ships are the most common ship category in number (30.7%), but bulk carriers are the most common ship type category by tonnage (42.3%). This is expected considering that these two ship types are the most common with respect to the total number of ships and tonnage (18.3% and 34.6%, respectively).
In comparison, oil and chemical tankers (21.4%), bulk carriers (19.3%), and general cargo ships (17.1%), have a larger proportion of the total number of ships originating from non-targeted flag States.
In addition, the report suggests that the majority of maritime traffic occurs in the Mediterranean Sea (13.1%) and Asia (37.5%), with both geographical areas accounting for 50% of the total sightings reported to Equasis. In respect to ship size, small sized ships were predominately sighted in the Mediterranean Sea (24.7%) while very large ships in Asia (40.2%).
Explore more by reading the full report:
