Brokers cannot agree how many dry bulk ships exist

Extraordinarily varying data sets are making business decisions very hard for the world’s supra and handy owners.

Analysis by Alphabulk, part of AXS Marine, shows a huge variance – close to 1,000 ships – on the existing total bulker fleet (see chart below).

Alphabulk took the bulker fleet numbers from four leading brokers – BRS (its parent), Clarkson, SSY and Braemar ACM and found there was a staggering 977 ship difference between the highest and lowest bulker tallies. The variance was also significant among the four brokers when it came to the bulker newbuild orderbook with a 150-ship difference noted between the highest and lowest tally.

While the numbers for capes and panamaxes are broadly similar, the real divergence comes in the smaller segments, the supramaxes and handysizes.

“[I]t seems that the bigger the ship the higher the consensus on numbers, and the smaller the ship the lower the consensus,” Alphabulk noted in its most recent weekly report, concluding the article by warning: “Just remember that there is probably 20% extra capacity hidden in slow speed!”