French orders to foreign shipyards

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66 Loading operation of Touraine 39,000 cbm, ex Nkossa II, 78,000 cbm at Nkossa (Congo). AP Moller and Exmar with the transfer, under time-charter agreements, of the four AP Moller fully refrigerated 35,000 cbm ships to Exmar commercial management. These various consolidations undertaken by major and smaller shipowners result in a new LPG fleet structure where the commercial management of the ships is organised around each specific size, types of product and their trading market areas. The three main shipowning/operating groups are now headed by : • Bergesen DY for tonnage between 52,000 and 85,000 cbm (fully refrigerated type). • Exmar for mid-size tonnage between 18,000 and 43,000 cbm (fully refrigerated type). • AP Moller for the semi-pressure/fully refrigerated type of tonnage between 8,000 and 20,000 cbm. Such development means that besides the traders' controlled tonnage - among which plays a major actor owning some 30 ships ranging between 3,700 and 100,000 cbm - and captive area tonnage such as Indian, Korean or Japanese tonnage, the shipowning offer of tonnage in excess of 8,000 cbm is narrowing up to "one owner per size ship". Such consolidated structure should allow owners to offer a better flexibility and service to their clients. But charterers might be also disturbed by the scarcity of available shipping partners, the same way as shipowners were worried about the narrowing number of their potential clients. Nevertheless, a vessel can trade worldwide with various products whilst a charterer is usually committed to one kind of product on a limited traffic area, with however some flexibility given by product swaps or fob sales. Without entering into a detailed review of the reasons of such a situation - among which often remains the breakeven level at which owners had to trade their ships - we must expect several side effects such as: • Ship end-users will have to secure their transportation requirements with closer and sharper eyes, hopefully with a greater confidence, a better understanding and transparency towards owners' operational and financial contingencies. • They might also be tempted to try and find some independence and study various ways and means of controlling themselves their shipping operations, whether by operating more time-chartered tonnage, acquiring ships, or as sometimes seen on a tight shipping market, by contracting newbuilding units, a move which could in turn have some impact on the fragile demand/offer ratio if multiple and similar actions are being taken simultaneously. • Shipowners/ship operators should look at keeping a reasonable pace for higher returns so as to avoid loosing some of the confidence and partnership they have been otherwise looking for. The smooth balance between the above parameters is not easy to reach, as conflicting interests are constantly fighting for more and more short-term results and efficiency. The border line between larger scale product marketing and/or fleet control for a higher efficiency, and larger scale control for immediate financial returns might be a difficult path to follow in the near future when trying to reach a steady and healthy equilibrium.
We believe that further consolidations may take place in the coming years in the smaller ship sector, although many more players are involved in this size below 8,000 cbm, whether it will be between independent shipowners such as Lauritzen Kosan, Tarquin International, Anthony Veder, Chemgas, MC Shipping, etc., or together with existing pool consortiums such as Unigas International, GasChem Medgas Pool, Norwegian Gas Carriers, etc. The impact of this probably unavoidable process might however be limited by the possible ordering of newbuilding units which, for this smaller size tonnage, need less capital undertaking than for the larger ship segment. 1999 highlights and brief commodity review 1998 economy was affected by the Asian financial crisis which started in the middle of 1997 in South East Asia, with further extensions to Japan and Korea as well as to Brazil and Russia by mid-1998. 1999 has seen not only the end of the economic crisis but, contrary to many forecasts some anticipated signs of recovery slowly taking place in those troubled countries of the Far East and South East Asia, although not yet in full gear, especially in Japan. Confidence and demand are back which means better news for trade and shipping activities. China is currently predicted a yearly growth of close to 7% in year 2000! As mentioned above, production and marketing of energy, more specifically petroleum products, can no longer be considered on a sole regional scale but now needs to be studied on a global world scale. This approach necessitates consideration of many more economical parameters and enlarge the number of possible scenari with less and less visibility resulting in much higher price volatility and more options for alternative trade patterns. The barrel of crude oil moved from $10 in December 1998 to high $20's by November 1999 and seems presently to stabilise at around $25. LPG carriers contracting as at December 1, 1999 75,000 cbm 52.1% (in cubic capacity) 39,550 cbm 27.5% 29,500 cbm 20.5% 12,000 cbm P 12,000 cbm Ethy 70-86,000 cbm FR The LPG Saudi Arabian contract price was erratic all year, varying from $130/mt (metric tons) in April up to $290 by September and down to $230-240 in December 1999. These price fluctuations gave room for an East/West trading arbitrage and some interesting export movements from US Gulf and West/North Africa to the Far East options which, although very sporadic, was good news to VLGC owners. Such LPG exports were more price sensitive than ever, mainly due to Middle East Gulf oil producers' cutbacks and increased internal consumption for the petrochemical industry, whilst increased availability ex West/North Africa/North West Europe and even US terminals had to find a home at competitive price levels. Continuous rising demand and imports of LPG to China were mainly featured by the disposal of most of the VLGC floating storage capacity replaced by newly delivered land storage capacities. The fertiliser segment was also affected by some volatility on ammonia pricing at the beginning of 1999 but reached a steadier market balance as from the second quarter of 1999. A reasonable vintage over 12 months gave good trading opportunities for long haul movements from the Black Sea to eastern and western destinations. Steady employment was given to several large gas carriers (52,000-57,000 cbm) mostly dedicated to the Transatlantic traffic from Black Sea to USA, and an irregular but strong demand for the mid-size class (24,000-35,000 cbm capacity). New production capacities in the Caribbean, South America and Asia, linked with expected increased demand in the Indian Ocean and the Far East will be the dominant developments in this market over 2000. The main tone on the petrochemical gas market has been a general lack of molecules, whether on butadiene, propylene, ethylene and, to a lesser extent, VCM markets. LPG carriers contracting as at December 1, 1999 4 ships (in number of ships) 1 ship 11 ships 12,000 cbm P 12,000 cbm Ethy 70-86,000 cbm FR LPG carriers contracting in 1999 T h e l i q u e f i e d p e t r o l e u m g a s m a r k e t S H I P P I N G A N D S H I P B U I L D I N G M A R K E T S 2 0 0 0 67
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Bad and good reasons ? At the end o
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The shipbuilding market in 1999 The
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Quarterly orders in gross tonnage (
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In contrast, most Chinese shipyards
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As an example, production costs for
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China As it was the case last year,
Page 15 and 16: 10 9.5 9 8.5 8 7.5 7 The European C
Page 17 and 18: The Asian challenge is clearly felt
Page 19 and 20: Norway Norwegian shipyards, which a
Page 21 and 22: The cruise market in 1999 1998 was
Page 23 and 24: success. Carnival tried in vain to
Page 25 and 26: European sector. Very few second-ha
Page 27 and 28: The containership market in 1999 Br
Page 29 and 30: (before absorption), Evergreen, P&O
Page 31 and 32: Teu 300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000
Page 33 and 34: 4,000-4,999 teu 17% 3,000-3,999 teu
Page 35 and 36: The reefership market in 1999 Anoth
Page 37 and 38: The spot market Compared to 1998, t
Page 39 and 40: concluded until very late. • Expo
Page 41 and 42: The dry bulk market in 1999 The pes
Page 43 and 44: 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Jan 96 US$/tonne
Page 45 and 46: US$/day 15,000 13,000 11,000 9,000
Page 47 and 48: older ladies in the 15 years-old br
Page 49 and 50: The tanker market in 1999 Crude •
Page 51 and 52: 15% At the same time, youth in the
Page 53 and 54: for us just how stagnant this marke
Page 55 and 56: their specifications and their SBT
Page 57 and 58: Dwt 12,000,000 10,000,000 8,000,000
Page 59 and 60: The chemical carrier market in 1999
Page 61 and 62: the previous year. Deliveries for t
Page 63 and 64: There are two corollaries to this.
Page 65: The liquefied petroleum gas shippin
Page 69 and 70: In this respect, the Chevron/Dynegy
Page 71 and 72: Perceptions As mentioned, the conso
Page 73 and 74: The liquefied natural gas shipping
Page 75 and 76: In Malaysia, the Japanese market wi
Page 77 and 78: The offshore market in 1999 Allow u
Page 79 and 80: The oil-drilling world also acknowl
Page 81 and 82: 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000
Page 83 and 84: The fishing vessel market in 1999 D
Page 85 and 86: 45,000 40,000 35,000 30,000 25,000
Page 87 and 88: The marine insurance markets in 199
Page 89 and 90: of future resources in order to mee
Page 91 and 92: French shipyards deliveries and ord
Page 93 and 94: Chantiers Piriou • Ships delivere
Page 95 and 96: French orders to foreign shipyards
Page 97 and 98: • Samsung (South Korea) FDS 2000
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French orders to foreign shipyards

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