The dry bulk shipping market has just seen a continuous streak of uptrend breaking the 400 mark. China has not recovered yet which definitely had a huge impact on the dry bulk shipping. More ships on the order book and less cargo demand have all culminated the shipping market. Thanks to the low bunker fuel prices only because of which many dry bulk operators could hold on to the shipping business. The dry bulk operators either scrap their old fleet or lay-up their ships. This has resulted in considerable reduction in a number of ships visiting the US ports.
Does this mean the USCG has more time to inspect every ship?
Why not!
The USCG has ramped up the number of inspections and detentions despite a decline in the number of ships visiting the US ports. Reports say that the number of detentions has almost doubled in 2015 than in the past.
- No. Of Ships Detained in 2015 – 203, which is a 42% increase compared to 2014 and nearly double the total detentions in 2012. These figures have been extracted from the presentation slides of Admiral Paul Zukunft, during the Connecticut Maritime Association (CMA)’s Shipping 2016 conference in Stamford.
- The largest share of detainable deficiencies, 21% of the total, were related to firefighting equipment.
- The type of ship which was detained in most cases was the Bulk Carriers, where the markets remain gloomy till date.
The above points are extracts from the CMA conference and other reports.
