Global Head of Clarksons Research reviews 2019 and decade

Global Head of Clarksons Research Stephen Gordon writes in his analysis of 2019 that the final year of the decade saw further improvements across the shipping markets with a 24% increase in our ClarkSea Index taking it to its highest level since 2010, principally driven by gains in the tanker and gas segments. Meanwhile the impact of “headline” growth in seaborne trade (1.1% to 11.9bn tonnes) and world fleet (4.1% to 2.1bn dwt) were supplemented by IMO 2020 related “adjustments”. The year’s analysis can be viewed here.

“As we close in on the end of the decade, this week’s analysis compares data from shipping’s last forty years. It’s certainly been a tough decade, much of it spent dealing with the aftermath of the financial cri- sis and working through shipping’s surplus capacity. But it’s been far from a “dead decade”: trade growth of 3.7bn tonnes, 1.2bn dwt of deliveries and an improving ClarkSea Index as we close out…” he says in the separate article “Shipping Decades”, the full text of which can be viewed here.