SHIP GROUP

Each ship type is to a high degree built with particular products, service functions and trade patterns in mind. This is to make the performance of services and the transport of products on the individual trade lanes as efficient as possible.  

The major product groups are liquid bulk , dry bulk , containers , vehicles and passengers. In addition there are a large number of vessels which perform services rather than transporting products.

The principal types of merchant vessels belong to the groups of tanker vessels, dry bulk vessels, container ships, Ro-Ro vessels.
 
Apart from passenger and cruise vessels, offshore vessels and the principal groups of merchant vessels, there are a great number of lesser known vessel groups. These include e.g. heavy lift vessels, floating cranes, livestock carriers, multi-purpose vessels, fishing vessels, icebreakers, dredgers, tugs and pilot/rescue vessels.

Tanker Ship

The most common tanker ships are the crude oil tankers and the product tankers, which carry crude oil and refined oil products, respectively. In addition there are chemical tankers, gas tankers (LPG and LNG) along with numerous other lesser known tanker types.  

The common denominator for all tankers is that they carry liquid substances in large bulk quantities.  

Depending on ship type they may be able to carry other liquids than the ones the ship type is specifically build for. Thus there is a much larger substitution within the group of tankers than e.g. between the group of tankers and the group of dry bulk ships. This implies that the earnings are highly correlated between the different tanker types and segments. 

For instance the product tanker may carry crude oil but the crude oil tanker cannot necessarily carry refined oil products since these oil products may require the tanks to be coated which the tanks of the crude oil tanker are not.   

The chemical tanker may carry oil products but the product tankers cannot carry chemicals since these chemical products require special storage facilities and security procedures. 

The LPG tanker may carry clean petroleum products but the product tanker can not carry liquefied gasses.  

The substitution among tankers is to some extent constrained by the vetting procedure of the oil companies and by the costs of cleaning the tanks when changing the type of liquid carried in the tanks. Thus the tankers do sometimes change employment pattern, but only when the difference in freight rates is great enough to cover the costs associated with the chang

Dry Bulk Carrier

Dry bulk carriers transport large volume cargoes in ship loads. Major dry bulk commodities consist of industrial raw materials including iron ore, coal, grain, bauxite and alumina. Minor bulks such as soya beans/meal, steel products, phosphate rocks and sulphur also accounts for a significant part of the dry bulk trade. 

Dry bulk carriers are generally designed for simplicity and cheapness. However some of the small vessels are of higher technical designs in order to trade special cargoes such as cements and rocks. These vessels are somewhat similar to multipurpose vessels in both size and design.  

The ownership of dry bulk tonnage is highly dispersed compared to the ownership of crude oil tankers, chemical tankers and containerships. 

The dry cargo market is a large mixture of spot arrangements, time-charter agreements and industrial shipping.