>>1443744China's "belt and road" initiative means a lot of money is being spent on infrastructure.
Bigger ports means smaller ships are less and less useful. Big ships are always more efficient than small ones, both in economic terms and environmental terms (relative to the cargo carried). The new Panama canal has been expanded too, ships no longer need to be limited to 32m beam either.
I think we're going to see an oversizing of ship sizes, this already happened to Containers but it'll happen to BCs and Tankers too.
For example in the dry market, the standard handy size in the Baltic Index is now the 38K Imabari and not the old 28K Imabari design for example. The old 46K handymax became the 52K Supramax which became the 58K Supramax then the 64K Ultramax, now Mitsui is making wide beam 67K Ultramaxes.
The old 72K Panamax became the 76K Panamax which became the 82K Kamsarmax. Now Port Kamsar has been upgraded with Chinese money and can accomodate Capesizes.
Meanwhile new 250K and 400K ore carriers are replacing the old 180K Capesizes.
Everything is getting huge.
This helps the big players. Like Containers, there will be consolidation. Small shipowners will disappear, they will all merge into behemoths like what happened to the Container market.
The era of the small, independent, private, family-owned shipowner offices hoping to make big money on well-timed asset plays is coming to an end.
