The Continuing Growth of The Greek Owned Fleet

By Dr Nikos Mikelis

In 1988 Lloyd's Register of Shipping developed a new method of analysing its shipping information databases. The purpose of this analysis was the production of ownership data, as contrasted to the traditional publication of flag data. The first publication of ownership data, which coincided with the Posidonia exhibition, showed the Creek owned fleet with 85.0 million DWT to be at the top of the world league, just ahead of the Japanese owned fleet. In the years that followed the Creek owned fleet initially declined in deadweight terms and temporarily lost the leading position to Japan, then showed a steady but modest increase until 1991 when it stood at 87.1 million DWT In retrospect we might be allowed maybe to claim that the reduction and subsequent modest growth is consistent with successful Creek attitudes towards S & P when ship values are heated. Equally predictable was perhaps the steep growth after 1991. When in 1992 the Creek owned fleet reached the emotive level of 100 million deadweight, the annually produced data by Lloyd's Register began to be quoted in numerous magazines and newspapers, even outside the maritime press, and also became a justified source of pride for the Creek shipping community. In March of this year the, by now, undisputed world leader in terms of size, Creek owned fleet, reached a new height with 104.0 million deadweight. Since that time, two further analyses were commissioned with LRS by the Creek press, the latest of these showing the Creek fleet with 107.5 million DWT, this being 52% of the total EEC owned fleet and also contrasted to the 94.2 and 55.4 million DWT of the Japanese and the Norwegian owned fleets respectively. As a contribution towards the celebration of the "silver jubilee" of the Piraeus Marine Club, the present analysis was commissioned, which, in two months since the last analysis, shows a large further growth of Creek owned tonnage, bringing the total now to 112.1 million deadweight. Certainly a cause for further celebration (and having noted recent press reports on Mr. Yeltsin's visit to Piraeus, the writer hopes that the President is kept up to date with these new figures), but for the sake of balanced thinking, let us also look at the data with a critical eye.

Of the 155 ships and 8.14 million DWT fleet increase since March, the Creek flag benefited by only 27 vessels of 3.59 million DWT. The rather disappointingly low number of vessels raising the national flag (only 17%) must reflect the lack of availability of Creek officers. As the number of seamen has been steadily declining, the number of vessels has been steadily increasing. Last year's increased number of applicants for entry in the Marine Acadamies provides one ray of hope for the future, as it is primarily the people and their know-how which has built success rather than the hardware.

Table 3 is interesting as it compares the Creek owned fleet in each age and ship-type group to the total world fleet. If we were to compare this data to the corresponding ones of March this year, we would see that the Creek share has gone up in all but the oldest age group. The decline in the "25 & above" group reflects the high level of scrapping sales by Greeks reported recently. It seems that this too was a commercial success in catching a high in scrap price levels and is also a small step towards bringing a more balanced age distribution compared to the world fleet (see group of data at the bottom of Table 3).

So, some small progress has taken place by having an even faster rate of growth in the order book (where Greek owners have shone with their absence for some years) and also in the 0 - 4 and 5 - 9 age groups. The fact that the progress is small can be seen from a comparison of the data in Tables 4 and 5, where the average age of the Greek owned fleet is consistently larger than that of the world fleet in all ship type categories. But, whereas it is easy to make statistical judgements, the reality is that for some time now the returns in the industry do not cover the costs of running new ships. With the financial risks involved it should come as no surprise to anyone when the individual owners refuse to subsidise the renewal of the world fleet. However, the danger to the Greek owned fleet, as it is getting larger and larger, is that it becomes more of a target to external attacks, and whereas in the "good old days", attacks tended to come mainly from the underwriters' corner, now in the OPA era, attacks can come from all directions. As an example, consider the recent attempt by an industrialised country in Europe, with a modest fleet and an even more modest tanker fleet, to legislate a ban on tankers over 15 years of age.

Perhaps one should not worry too much about the wishful thinking of commentators sitting in the periphery of the industry (especially when their benevolence is based on someone else's money), but it is a fact that success often attracts jealousy. Without the support of national cargoes and without the existence of a powerul lobby of a developed maritime services industry, the Creek owned fleet is bound to be the target of attacks. In our era which is dominated by the media and by public relations, it will be the continuing duty of the already active Creek maritime fora to respond with imagination and foresight. Amongst the Creek fora, the Piraeus Marine Club has a special position, and together with the congratulations it deserves for its 25th anniversary, I wish that the Club carries on contrib- uting successfully to the cause of Creek shipping.

TABLE 1

FLAG ANALYSIS OF SHIPS OWNED BY GREEK PARENT COMPANIES
( SHIPS GREATER THAN 1,000 GROSS. ANALYSIS ON 04.08.93 )

CHEMICAL & NO 238 4 26 43 45 65 47 8 PRODUCTS GT 4,754,785 95,701 1,038,632 896,887 817,036 1,230,967 602,737 72.825 DWT 8,311,522 764,895 1,757,533 1,470.885 1,476.956 2,260,505 7,060,301 120,447

LIQUID NO 34 1 3 8 4 5 13 GAS GT 316,079 11,822 41,502 123,943 61,220 22,047 55,545 DWT 374,146 11,600 48,559 152,932 70,308 25,606 65,141

COMBINATION NO 73 4 6 27 36 CARRIERS GT 4,528,685 183,138 302,025 1,601,608 2,441,914 DWT 9,069,782 298,618 518,425 3,183,111 5,069,628

ORE& NO 1,150 14 15 106 174 441 349 51 BULK GT 24,691,377 548,681 559,628 2,686,865 4,162,566 8,639,854 7,130,894 962,889 DWT 45.197,164 1,009,279 1,003,738 4,630,913 7,655,391 15,836,697 13,314894 1,746252

PURE NO 43 2 5 19 16 1 CONTAINER GT 627,070 18,700 57,562 354,548 192,276 3,984 DWT 765,392 25,400 71,969 418,164 245,033 4,826

CARGO NO 817 5 16 16 124 261 255 140 GT 5,667,652 49,296 89,569 157.224 990,119 2,086,194 1,690.029 605,221 DWT 8,600,080 58,860 105,703 225,810 1,483,251 3,271,936 2,540,746 913,774

PASSENGER NO 176 6 5 1 22 50 92 GT 1,256,970 201,550 120,386 4,097 116,828 287,134 526,975 DWT 327,727 19,300 14,850 2,426 39,949 83,763 167,439

OTHERS NO 50 2 4 4 10 4 26 GT 367,938 13,055 5,806 9,908 13 5,108 16,449 187,612 DWT 273,850 7,713 4,423 10,550 111,939 17,451 121,774

TOTAL NO 2,904 39 78 183 397 1,009 818 380 GT 61,531,557 1,348,804 2,969,862 4,303,766 7,723,853 27,735,589 14,481,002 2,968,681 DWT 112,095,687 2,057,934 4,971,153 7,247,921 13,850,719 53,194,547 26,647,696 4,125,717

CHEMICAL & NO 8.1 1.8 4.7 8.0 7.3 12.2 15.3 5.3 PRODUCTS GT 12.1 3.1 11.8 11.3 10.1 17.2 21.4 4.9 DWT 12.5 3.4 11.9 11.2 10.7 18.1 21.6 4.8

LIQUID NO 4.8 0.6 4.4 5.1 3.1 6.2 19.1 GAS GT 2.1 0.4 3.5 3.6 1.7 2.1 16.3 DWT 2.5 0.4 4.2 4.2 2.0 2.3 17.4

COMBINATION NO 24.8 13.8 10.7 27.8 48.0 CARRIERS GT 24.6 9.8 10.7 25.4 45.5 DWT 26.0 9.0 10.4 26.1 46.4

ORE & NO 22.9 5.5 3.9 10.6 18.0 33.4 44.7 16.8 BULK GT 19.4 5.4 3.5 9.3 16.8 31.9 45.4 19.5 DWT 19.9 5.6 3.4 9.2 17.3 32.7 46.9 20.7

PURE NO 2.7 1.0 1.7 8.5 7.6 3.1 CONTAINER GT 1.8 0.4 1.0 9.1 4.6 1.0 DWT 2.0 0.5 1.2 10.0 5.8 1.0

CARGO NO 6.6 1.2 1.3 0.9 5.6 9.8 11.5 7.4 GT 7.0 1.8 1.0 1.0 6.6 11.4 13.4 7.2 DWT 8.4 2.2 1.1 1.5 7.6 12.5 14.0 8.0

PASSENGER NO 10.6 6.4 1.8 0.5 10.8 17.7 21.7 GT 9.8 13.8 4.5 0.3 9.5 16.8 21.9 DWT 9.9 9.2 2.6 0.5 10.2 17.2 21.7

OTHERS NO 1.0 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.9 0.5 2.6 GT 1.8 0.5 0.2 0.3 3.4 0.6 4.5 DWT 1.6 0.6 0.2 0.4 2.8 0.6 3.6

TOTAL NO 9.0 2.6 2.1 3.7 6.8 14.3 15.9 8.9 GT 12.9 3.6 4.0 5.5 10.1 22.0 25.2 11.4 DWT 15.0 3.7 4.4 6.6 11.7 24.0 28.5 12.1

OIL CHEMICAL & LIQUID COMBINATION ORE & PURE TANKERS PRODUCTS GAS CARRIERS BULK CONTAINER CARGO PASSENGER OTHERS TOTAL AVERAGE AGE (NO.) 18.9 14.2 19.5 18.5 17.1 18.4 19.9 26.6 24.2 18.6 AVERAGE AGE (GRT) 16.8 11.9 15.8 18.8 16.6 17.8 18.6 25.6 25.5 16.9 AVERAGE AGE (DWT) 16.9 12. 1 15.8 19.0 16.7 17.9 18.7 27.6 24.0 16.8

NOTE:

The average age of each fleet is computed and presented not only in terms of ship numbers but air, in terms of tonnages (GRT & DWT).

This is done so as to provide a measure of any ageing bias that might exist in the larger size vessels leg. when average age in terms of tonnage is larger than the average in terms of ship numbers), or conversely to detect ageing in the smaller size ships within the fleet (eg. average age in terms of tonnage smaller than average age based on ship numbers).