Anna K. Voronenko
Admiral Nevelskoy Maritime State University, Vladivostok
Abstract: The world experience of transport management, the current situation in the shipping and logistics markets show that a shortage or excess of the marine fleet capacity can significantly worsen the situation not only within supply chains, affecting the final cost of goods, but also in entire sectors of the economy. The basis for the formation of market strategies in shipping, shipbuilding and related industries is the assessment (forecast) of the need for the fleet. Firstly, it’s necessary to analyze the current structure of the sea fleet and the prospects for cargo turnover transported by these vessels. After analysis the current state of the fleet in the FE Basin (see “Asia-Pacific Journal of Marine Science and &Education”, No 2, 2021 ), this article subscribes the methodology of fleet forecasting based on the cargo forecast and proposes theexampleof forecastforRussianFarEast.
Key words: forecast, fleet assets, demand for tonnage, demand for tonnage, transport infrastructure, shipping.
The transport fleet of the USSR consisted from about 1,800 vessels with a total deadweight of 22 million tons and transported annually up to 240 million tons, including about 6.5 million tons of Northern delivery. As you see on the slide, the cargo flow after sharp decrease because of economic situation in the result of the breakup of the USSR then is constantly increasing for twenty years, fig. 1.
But the deadweight and quantity of sea fleet did not increase such rapidly, includes the vessels under offshore company flag. Such situation is characteristic not only for Russia as a whole but also for the Far East. Thus, despite the growth of tonnage, the share of cargo carriage by the ships under Russian flag and the fleet under the control of Russian shipowners is decreasing. Such situation features as for whole Russian fleet so for Russian Far East particularly.
The fleet under the Russian flag in general and in the Far East in particular continues to age, the majority of ships are over 25 years old, of which a significant share are over 30 years old. It is necessary to constantly monitor and generalize the issues of the condition of the fleet assets, trends of its development, taking into account the fact that shipping is a complex type of activity with a large number of parties involved. Such studies should be aimed not at a simple statement of facts, but at the development of sound forecasts and proposals for the development of the fleet in the interests of the state. [4]
For estimate forecast fleet demand the following factors should be taken into account:
– the current state of world shipping and shipbuilding;
– the economic, political and social interests of Russia in the region or in the world as a whole;
– forecasts of the Russian economy development;
– forecasts of the world economy and shipping development; – competition in global shipbuilding and shipping, etc. Despite the abundance of these factors on any scale (world, region, country, shipping segment), everything is determined by the supply-demand balance and the forecast of this balance, in connection with this, we note several important factors:
– the state of shipbuilding largely depends not only on the internal aspects of the state of the industry, but also on the forecast of the demand for ships in various segments of shipping, on the state of the current book of orders, on the estimated volume of decommissioning of ships, on the current state of the market for the sale of ships (new, former in operation), on the existing possibility of financial support for contracts for the construction of ships, etc.;
– the situation in the markets related to shipbuilding is constantly changing and is subject to analysis on an ongoing basis: for example, monitoring of world shipping and shipbuilding markets covers reviews on a weekly, monthly and annual basis, while the life cycle of a vessel is more than two decades, and shipyards – and even more so;
– shipbuilding, as well as shipping and other related markets (financial, trade, etc.), has a pronounced cyclical nature and is never in a state of absolute equilibrium;
– the shipbuilding market, in an effort to satisfy the demand for tonnage, is formed by a significant number of segments by types of ships and shipbuilding products, the demand for which changes significantly over time, but in general, shipbuilding products are always in demand;
– the analysis of the current market situation does not make it possible to reliably select long-term segments, but it is absolutely necessary, since it makes it possible to verify certain parameters of promising niches, for example, in terms of quality, price, timing, or choosing a convenient moment to enter the market and many other market aspects.
To solve strategic problems in forecasting, it is advisable to use several approaches, taking into account differences in trends in each individual sector (segment) of shipping and shipbuilding.
(End of introductory fragment