The Ghost Fleet of the Recession
September 14th, 2009It’s the Daily Mail, but this somewhat interesting anyway.
Right off the bat, however, there’s a serious howler that I’ve got to clear up before I post a link to this: “The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history…”
Maybe the author of the piece below isn’t aware of what happened during the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, but here’s how the U.S. Navy tells it:
The naval component of the operation, code named Operation NEPTUNE, comprised large numbers of warships, auxiliaries and landing craft. In all, Britain, Canada, and the United States, as well as the navies-in-exile of France, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Greece, supplied 1,213 warships for the invasion.
I don’t know what the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history is, but Normandy definitely trumped this situation below.
Anyway, back to our program…
Via: Daily Mail:
Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers – all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009.
…
They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia’s rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour.
It is so far off the beaten track that nobody ever really comes close, which is why these ships are here. The world’s ship owners and government economists would prefer you not to see this symbol of the depths of the plague still crippling the world’s economies.
So they have been quietly retired to this equatorial backwater, to be maintained only by a handful of bored sailors. The skeleton crews are left alone to fend off the ever-present threats of piracy and collisions in the congested waters as the hulls gather rust and seaweed at what should be their busiest time of year.
…
The Aframax-class oil tanker is the camel of the world’s high seas. By definition, it is smaller than 132,000 tons deadweight and with a breadth above 106ft. It is used in the basins of the Black Sea, the North Sea, the Caribbean Sea, the China Sea and the Mediterranean – or anywhere where non-OPEC exporting countries have harbours and canals too small to accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCC) or ultra-large crude carriers (ULCCs). The term is based on the Average Freight Rate Assessment (AFRA) tanker rate system and is an industry standard.
A couple of years ago these ships would be steaming back and forth. Now 12 per cent are doing nothing
You may wish to know this because, if ever you had an irrational desire to charter one, now would be the time. This time last year, an Aframax tanker capable of carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost £31,000 a day ($50,000). Now it is about £3,400 ($5,500).
Where’s the Google Sat pic? That would be cool!
Google may or may not have a recent image. Google Earth now indicates when the images were taken, so someone who has that program installed can have a look. (I don’t have it installed.) I think that vesseltracker.com is applying GPS data to the maps.
Not sure if its exactly that big a secret, as similar stories have been reported in the Financial Times and the Business Times here in Singapore.
There is indeed a massive amount of shipping sitting idle around here. You can clearly see them off the southern coast of Singapore (where the main container ship harbour is), where they’re scattered across the horizon and on a recent flight to Malaysia, there is a large amount of shipping in the Johor Straits on the northern tip of Singapore, though its hard to say if they’re moving or not.
They won’t come into harbour (which incurrs fees) because there’s nothing to ship. The Western demand for consumer goods has tanked.
From my vague memory of a news report there are supposed to be about 750-800 ships out there.
It’s probably not the biggest congregation ever, but its certainly unprecedented for this neck of the woods.