2 American Journal of Transportation American Journal of Transportation ajot.com The case for more ships: MPP owners see a market worth building for By Luke King, AJOT (CASE – continued on page 4) Shipping executives gath- ering in Hamburg to discuss the multipurpose market deliv- ered near-unanimous optimism, though there were differing per- spectives on vessel size, crane capacity, ownership structure and where capital investment is best directed. Moderator Hannes Hol- laender, Managing Partner of Hamburg shipbroker Toepfer Transport GmbH, opened the MPP panel at Septem- ber’s Xinde Marine Forum by anchoring the discussion in his firm’s Toepfer Multi- purpose Index (TMI), which he put at roughly $12,500 a day for a 12,500-dwt F-type vessel. Lucius Bunk, Man- aging Partner of Auerbach Schifffahrt GmbH & Co. KG, wasted no time branding the index “too low.” “At the moment it doesn’t reflect real earnings on the spot market,” he said, setting the tone for a session in which four owners and operators — Bunk, Janusz Kuźmicki of Chipolbrok, Max Stol- yarov of VARAMAR, and Capt. Yang Lei of Baosheng Marine — each pitched their vision of what the ideal fleet should look like. Kuźmicki, Shipping Direc- tor at Chipolbrok’s Gdynia office, framed the market’s health around a structural shift in trade flows. Export cargo out of China remains excep- tionally strong, he said, driven overwhelmingly by wind tur- bine components and battery energy storage systems moving to Europe, the Mediterranean, the United States and Canada. Europe’s own project cargo base, by contrast, has thinned considerably. “I remember the times when we were nominat- ing three liner ships monthly from Hamburg and Antwerp,” he said, recalling the volume of investment goods that once underpinned Chipolbrok’s Euro- pean liner service. “Nowadays we operate this service with one monthly departure from Europe.” Charter business has picked up some of the slack, and despite the “geopoliti- cal difficulties” of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the picture remains positive enough to justify a substantial newbuilding pro- gram, part of which has already been delivered this year. A New Generation of Eco Tonnage Bunk’s bullishness rested on fundamentals rather than headline rates. The MPP fleet carries an average age of 17 to 18 years, he noted, and the sector went through roughly a decade — from 2014 to 2024 — with almost no newbuild- ing deliveries. That has left the water short of “eco ships” burning 35-40% less fuel than older tonnage, at a time when MPP still lags container ship- ping in adopting new propul- sion technology. Combine an overaged fleet with tightening supply and rising ton-miles from regional conflict, he argued, and the case for further new- building investment writes itself — tonnage also needed to help rebuild regions once conflicts eventually resolve. Hollaender offered his own reading of the cycle: broadly positive, anchored PROJECT CARGO 2026 PROJECT CARGO 2026 (L to R) Lucius Bunk – Auerbach Schifffahrt GmbH & Co, Capt. Yang Lei – Baosheng Marine, Janusz Kuźmicki – Chipolbrok, Max Stolyarov – VARAMAR, Hannes Hollaender – Toepfer Transport GmbH
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