International accountant and shipping consultant Moore Stephens says total annual operating costs in the shipping industry increased by an average of 2.2 percent in 2010. All cost categories showed an overall increase, with the exception of stores and insurance – with the latter falling by 4.7 percent overall.
The findings are set out in OpCost 2011, Moore Stephens' ship operating costs benchmarking tool. All individual categories of vessel covered by the research, with the exception of handysize product tankers, experienced an increase in total operating costs in 2010, the financial year covered by the survey. The 2.2 percent rise in costs in 2010 compares with a 2.0 percent fall recorded for the previous year, which was the first time since 2002 that operating costs had fallen.
The insurance category showed the biggest movement in terms of costs – down overall by an average of 4.7 percent across all vessel types in 2010. For tankers, the insurance spend was down by 7.9 percent, for container ships by 3.8 percent, and for bulkers by 2.9 percent. Panamax bulkers were the only individual class of ship to spend more on insurance in 2010, while the likes of small chemical tankers (10.4 percent), VLCCs (9.8 percent) and Aframax tankers (9.0 percent) spent considerably less.
Costs for the three main sectors covered – bulkers, tankers and container ships – were all up. The bulker index increased by 5 index points (or 2.9 percent) on a year-on-year basis, while the tanker index witnessed a two-index-point (1.1 percent) rise. Meanwhile, the container ship index (with a 2002 base year, as opposed to 2000 for the other two vessel classes) was up three index points, or 1.9 percent. The corresponding figures in last year's OpCost report showed falls in the bulker, tanker and container ship indexes of 1, 5 and 13 points respectively.
There was a 3.2 percent overall increase in 2010 crew costs compared with the 2009 figure, which itself represented the most moderate increase for a number of years. In 2008, the report revealed a 21 percent increase in this category. Tankers overall experienced increases in crew costs of 2.7 percent on average, compared to 2.5 percent in 2009. For bulkers, meanwhile, the overall increase in crew costs was 4.0 percent, while for container ships it was 2.9 percent.
For repairs and maintenance, there was an overall increase in costs of 4.5 percent, compared to the 11.3 percent decrease recorded for 2009. The biggest increase here was the 8.0 percent recorded in the container ship category. For bulkers the increase was 7.6 percent, and for tankers just 0.8 percent. For the second successive year, spending on stores fell – down by 1.0 percent. Overall, expenditure in this regard was actually up in the bulker sector, by 1.1 percent, but down in the tanker trades (by 3.4 percent) and in the container ship market (also by 3.4 percent).
