Sessions With Frank Mueller
Thursday, 25 April
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10:00am - 10:45am (CST) / 25/apr/2024 03:00 pm - 25/apr/2024 03:45 pm
Cargo and Competition: No More Captives
The supply chain chaos driven by COVID taught, or retaught, shippers of all types this lesson: Few cargoes are confined to specific ship types or transportation modes. Container cargoes can be bagged or palletized; containers can be moved on multipurpose ships; ro-ro shipments can move on bulkers. Although containers have quickly reabsorbed much of the spillover cargo seen during the COVID market, shippers say they are not abandoning what they’ve learned. At the same time, multipurpose and heavy-lift shipbuilding programs are replacing older vessels with newly designed, more efficient ships but adding little overall capacity, even as project cargo demand is expected to rise thanks to global drives toward energy security and decarbonization. Beyond the heaviest, largest, or most complex cargoes restricted to specialized ships, much of the coming cargo is mode-malleable, and the non-MPV/HL fleet is positioning itself to participate in this market. Everyone wants a piece of the general cargo pie. What should cargo shippers expect from these reconfigurations? How can they take advantage, and what realities might they run up against? This session, led by Journal of Commerce Research Analyst Susan Oatway, will discuss expected demand and how this is shaping shipbuilding decisions and, potentially, cargo flows.