NEWS

Dry bulk cargoes such as coal, grains and ores were earlier carried by general cargo ships. With the development of ship specialization, at the beginning of the 20th century appeared special iron ore transport ships, 1912 and the emergence of self-unloading ore ship, until the Second World War, bulk carriers are based on the development of ore carriers and coal carriers. After the Second World War, cement, fertilizer, wood chips, sugar, etc. also began to use bulk transport mode, bulk carrier application scope and fleet size rapidly expanding. The world's bulk carrier holdings increased from 61 ships and 1,167,000 dwt in 1954 (of which ore ships accounted for 70%) to 471 ships and 87.11 million dwt in 1960 (of which ore ships accounted for 57%). Since then, the number of bulk carriers to a faster rate of growth, in the 30 years from 1960 to 1990, the number of bulk carriers increased by 9.8 times, the number of deadweight tons increased by 27 times, in 1990, the bulk carrier holdings amounted to 5,087, 242.55 million deadweight tons. According to Lloyd's Register, at the end of 2003, the number of bulk carriers in the world was 5,888, 307.11 million deadweight tons, with an average age of 14.5 years.
In the 15 years from 1960 to 1975, the number of bulk carriers increased dramatically. in the first half of the 1980s, contrary to the rapid reduction of tanker tonnage, the rapid growth of bulk carriers, but the number of bulk carriers declined between 1986 and 1994, and then showed a steady growth trend. Overall, since 1980 in the oil tankers, bulk carriers, container ships and general cargo ships (including multi-purpose cargo ships) four types of ships, container ships, the fastest development of bulk carriers also grow faster, tanker tonnage in the early period of a substantial decline in recent years, a slow growth, while the conventional general cargo ships (including multi-purpose cargo ships) is a continuing trend of decline.
Large-scale history: another feature of the development of bulk carriers is the large-scale ship. 1954, the average single-vessel tonnage of bulk carriers was only 19,000 dwt, more than 40,000 dwt since 1973, has reached 54,000 dwt. The growth in the average single-vessel tonnage of the bulk carrier fleet is mainly reflected in the increase in the number of 60,000 to 80,000 dwt Panamaxes, 120,000 to 200,000 dwt Cape of Good Hope ships and 40,000 to 60,000 dwt Handysize ships, while the number of ships of less than 40,000 dwt has decreased significantly. At the same time, the average tonnage of each type of bulk carrier also shows an increasing trend. According to the statistics of a maritime information service company, the average tonnage of Cape of Good Hope bulk carriers was 129,415 dwt in 1990, and increased to 161,088 dwt in 2003, while that of Panamax bulk carriers increased from 64,294 dwt to 69,970 dwt, and that of Handysize bulk carriers increased from 30,423 dwt to 39,191 dwt. Among them, Panamax bulk carriers, due to the width constraints of the Panama Canal, only increased by 5,376 dwt during the 13-year period, which is much lower than the increase in tonnage of Cape of Good Hope vessels (an increase of 31,673 dwt). There are three main factors that have driven bulk carrier mega-ships, namely, the better economics of larger ships; the increasing level of ship design and construction; and the expansion of terminal port sizes and improvements in facilities.