by hausen » July 18, 2012, 8:15 pm
First, a big thanks is due to Matt Miner, Chris Franckowiak, and the boatnerd.com staff for compiling the saltie reports and for posting the archives recently - those lists from years past are an extremely interesting look at how things have changed.
Now to answer the questions posted above. First, the short versions:
There are at least two major reasons for the overall drop in saltie visits, both of which reached a kind of critical threshold in 2003 or so:
A decline in steel imports thanks to China's emergence as a major consumer of iron ore; and a decline in pressure to move grain via the Great Lakes due to export competition from emerging Black Sea grain producers.
And as for the change in mix of Lakes visitors from large bulk carriers to smaller multipurpose vessels: Shipbuilders and shipping companies around the world have slowly and steadily trended toward building wider bulk cargo vessels. Seaway-capable bulker numbers dwindled as many of them were retired between 2000 and 2012. Smaller (ie narrower) multipurpose ships have taken their place both because Seaway operators made efforts to attract them to the system and because that's just sort of how the economics naturally shook out.
Below follow much longer, more detailed explanations for both parts of Northup's question, as well as a look at what really makes the difference between a bulker and a general cargo carrier these days:
Probably the single most important cause of the decline in saltie numbers is the change in the world raw materials markets that occurred when the economies of countries like China, India, etc. really revved up in the early 2000s. Before 2003 or so, the U.S. was one of the world's major steel importing countries, and the majority of oceangoing visitors to the Great Lakes were bringing in steel products (coils, slabs/billets, bars, etc.) before looking for cargoes on the way out (usually ended up being grain). When the economies of China et al. heated up they emerged as major importers of iron ore (and probably steel as well), driving up iron ore and steel prices worldwide and shifting raw materials flows from the U.S. and Europe to Asia. In North America, many consumers of steel suddenly found it cheaper / easier to turn to local producers, and countries like the U.S. have seen less steel imports and more iron ore exports.
Another change happened almost simultaneously and also likely had an effect, albeit a less major one. During the early 2000s grain exports, especially wheat exports, from countries around the Black Sea (Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc.) took a dramatic uptick (not certain why, but I think it had to do with major improvements / modernizations in efficiency and productivity). Those exports proved to be a nice new source of grain for nearby countries in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Those are all regions that traditionally imported a lot of grain that originated on the Great Lakes. As Black Sea exports became more competitive, Great Lakes exporters saw a lot less business. That ties in to saltie numbers on the Great Lakes in the following way: now that the export business from the Lakes is quieter, grain cargoes that do get sold for export at Lakes elevators don't have a very far-reaching 'pull' on the world freight markets. The grain that does move through the system usually goes out aboard vessels that have already brought an inbound cargo to the Lakes, and very few ocean vessels are coming in empty from outside the system specifically to pick up an outbound cargo. That's in contrast to the pre 2003-ish era, when it was quite common (especially during the busy fall months) for ships to sail in ballast from all over the east coast and even from across the Atlantic to load grain on the Lakes.
As for the change in the mix of vessel types visiting the Lakes:
Length is more of a limiting factor than width in the mind of a global shipper, primarily due to the dimensions of loading and unloading docks around the world and also probably due to some basic physical laws of naval architecture. It's barely more expensive to build a wider ship of a given length, but that wider ship can carry more cargo and therefore make more money per trip and over its lifetime. There were more Seaway capable salties sailing the globe back in the 1990s / 2000s because during the 1970s and 1980s, 23m / 75' was still a fairly standard width for shipbuilders who were manufacturing what were called "handysize" bulkers (roughly bulkers capable of carrying 25,000 - 40,000 tons of cargo). The standard beam of a handy bulker has increased past the Seaway maximum of 23.7m / 77' since then. Between 2000 and now almost all of those older 75' wide handysized bulkers have been scrapped or sailed off to trade their final years in the far east, which makes a visit by ships like Stefania I and Barbro quite special these days; they're the last of their kind in these parts. They leave behind a smaller fleet of Seaway capable bulkers (now known in the global maritime world as "Lakers", in a twist that would confuse a lot of Lakes boatwatchers) built in recent years specifially with Lakes capability in mind by companies like Fednav, Canfornav, and Polsteam.
These days the standard width for a handysize bulker ranges from 26m / 85' 4" to 28m / 91' 10", with 29m becoming more common as well. Two new classes of bulkers have emerged and come to dominate the bulker market as well, each with a beam of 32m / 105', the current maximum for transit through the Panama Canal. "Supramax" bulkers are 190m x 32m / 623' x 105', the same length or slightly shorter than most of the Seaway capable Fednav / Canfornav / Polsteam bulkers being built today. "Kamsarmax" bulkers are 225m x 32m / 740' x 105', the same maximum length as is allowed on the Seaway. Kamsarmax bulkers are pretty much the world standard for bulk cargo transport today.
As the world fleet of Lakes-capable handy bulkers aged and the number of traditional bulkers that could visit the Lakes dwindled, operators of the Seaway system looked across the Atlantic to Europe and saw plenty of new multipurpose dry cargo carriers being built that were narrow enough to transit the Seaway. Seaway officials moved fairly aggressively to attract them to the Lakes with things like 'new cargo' and/or 'new operator' toll incentives, hence operators like Wagenborg and for a while Intersee Schiffahrts becoming a major presence on the Lakes. Also, new types of inbound cargo on the system like heavy industrial equipment and wind turbine components lend themselves more easily to transport aboard these multipurpose vessels than aboard standard bulkers, hence operators like BBC, the now-defunct Beluga fleet, and its successors like the HHL vessels.
The primary difference between a bulker and a multipurpose dry cargo carrier (what we would typically call a 'general cargo' ship) isn't what cargo they're carrying; plenty of Fednav and Polsteam bulkers carry steel or machinery into the Great Lakes, and plenty of BBC or HHL multipurpose ships carry grain or other bulk cargoes. Neither is it the presence of cargo-handling cranes that makes the distiction; many Wagenborg multipurpose ships don't have cranes (ie they're 'gearless') and plenty of Fednav bulkers have cranes (ie they're 'geared'). What makes the difference is a ship's cargo hold configuration. A bulker has fixed partitions (bulkheads) between holds, and no 'tweendecks' or horizontal partitions in the hold that could serve as a floor or ceiling for cargo; a bulker's holds are cavernous unbroken wells that span the full depth of the ship's hull. What was traditionally called a general cargo ship had tweendecks. Aboard the modern equivalent, a 'multipurpose dry cargo carrier', usually some or all of both tweendecks and bulkheads are moveable. This provides for a huge variety of hold configurations, allowing a ship to be very flexible. Some multipurpose dry cargo carriers can be seen on Lakes visits with all or almost all of their tweendecks / bulkheads stored on deck or stacked inside one end of their cargo hold, meaning their hold is one open space, ideal for uniform bulk cargoes or for oversized project cargo. Other times some or all of their bulkheads and tweendecks are setup throughout their hold, providing a number of different compartments to carry multiple pieces of equipment or varieties of cargo.
First, a big thanks is due to Matt Miner, Chris Franckowiak, and the boatnerd.com staff for compiling the saltie reports and for posting the archives recently - those lists from years past are an extremely interesting look at how things have changed.
Now to answer the questions posted above. First, the short versions:
There are at least two major reasons for the overall drop in saltie visits, both of which reached a kind of critical threshold in 2003 or so:
A decline in steel imports thanks to China's emergence as a major consumer of iron ore; and a decline in pressure to move grain via the Great Lakes due to export competition from emerging Black Sea grain producers.
And as for the change in mix of Lakes visitors from large bulk carriers to smaller multipurpose vessels: Shipbuilders and shipping companies around the world have slowly and steadily trended toward building wider bulk cargo vessels. Seaway-capable bulker numbers dwindled as many of them were retired between 2000 and 2012. Smaller (ie narrower) multipurpose ships have taken their place both because Seaway operators made efforts to attract them to the system and because that's just sort of how the economics naturally shook out.
Below follow much longer, more detailed explanations for both parts of Northup's question, as well as a look at what really makes the difference between a bulker and a general cargo carrier these days:
Probably the single most important cause of the decline in saltie numbers is the change in the world raw materials markets that occurred when the economies of countries like China, India, etc. really revved up in the early 2000s. Before 2003 or so, the U.S. was one of the world's major steel importing countries, and the majority of oceangoing visitors to the Great Lakes were bringing in steel products (coils, slabs/billets, bars, etc.) before looking for cargoes on the way out (usually ended up being grain). When the economies of China et al. heated up they emerged as major importers of iron ore (and probably steel as well), driving up iron ore and steel prices worldwide and shifting raw materials flows from the U.S. and Europe to Asia. In North America, many consumers of steel suddenly found it cheaper / easier to turn to local producers, and countries like the U.S. have seen less steel imports and more iron ore exports.
Another change happened almost simultaneously and also likely had an effect, albeit a less major one. During the early 2000s grain exports, especially wheat exports, from countries around the Black Sea (Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc.) took a dramatic uptick (not certain why, but I think it had to do with major improvements / modernizations in efficiency and productivity). Those exports proved to be a nice new source of grain for nearby countries in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Those are all regions that traditionally imported a lot of grain that originated on the Great Lakes. As Black Sea exports became more competitive, Great Lakes exporters saw a lot less business. That ties in to saltie numbers on the Great Lakes in the following way: now that the export business from the Lakes is quieter, grain cargoes that do get sold for export at Lakes elevators don't have a very far-reaching 'pull' on the world freight markets. The grain that does move through the system usually goes out aboard vessels that have already brought an inbound cargo to the Lakes, and very few ocean vessels are coming in empty from outside the system specifically to pick up an outbound cargo. That's in contrast to the pre 2003-ish era, when it was quite common (especially during the busy fall months) for ships to sail in ballast from all over the east coast and even from across the Atlantic to load grain on the Lakes.
As for the change in the mix of vessel types visiting the Lakes:
Length is more of a limiting factor than width in the mind of a global shipper, primarily due to the dimensions of loading and unloading docks around the world and also probably due to some basic physical laws of naval architecture. It's barely more expensive to build a wider ship of a given length, but that wider ship can carry more cargo and therefore make more money per trip and over its lifetime. There were more Seaway capable salties sailing the globe back in the 1990s / 2000s because during the 1970s and 1980s, 23m / 75' was still a fairly standard width for shipbuilders who were manufacturing what were called "handysize" bulkers (roughly bulkers capable of carrying 25,000 - 40,000 tons of cargo). The standard beam of a handy bulker has increased past the Seaway maximum of 23.7m / 77' since then. Between 2000 and now almost all of those older 75' wide handysized bulkers have been scrapped or sailed off to trade their final years in the far east, which makes a visit by ships like [i]Stefania I[/i] and [i]Barbro[/i] quite special these days; they're the last of their kind in these parts. They leave behind a smaller fleet of Seaway capable bulkers (now known in the global maritime world as "Lakers", in a twist that would confuse a lot of Lakes boatwatchers) built in recent years specifially with Lakes capability in mind by companies like Fednav, Canfornav, and Polsteam.
These days the standard width for a handysize bulker ranges from 26m / 85' 4" to 28m / 91' 10", with 29m becoming more common as well. Two new classes of bulkers have emerged and come to dominate the bulker market as well, each with a beam of 32m / 105', the current maximum for transit through the Panama Canal. "Supramax" bulkers are 190m x 32m / 623' x 105', the same length or slightly shorter than most of the Seaway capable Fednav / Canfornav / Polsteam bulkers being built today. "Kamsarmax" bulkers are 225m x 32m / 740' x 105', the same maximum length as is allowed on the Seaway. Kamsarmax bulkers are pretty much the world standard for bulk cargo transport today.
As the world fleet of Lakes-capable handy bulkers aged and the number of traditional bulkers that could visit the Lakes dwindled, operators of the Seaway system looked across the Atlantic to Europe and saw plenty of new multipurpose dry cargo carriers being built that were narrow enough to transit the Seaway. Seaway officials moved fairly aggressively to attract them to the Lakes with things like 'new cargo' and/or 'new operator' toll incentives, hence operators like Wagenborg and for a while Intersee Schiffahrts becoming a major presence on the Lakes. Also, new types of inbound cargo on the system like heavy industrial equipment and wind turbine components lend themselves more easily to transport aboard these multipurpose vessels than aboard standard bulkers, hence operators like BBC, the now-defunct Beluga fleet, and its successors like the HHL vessels.
The primary difference between a bulker and a multipurpose dry cargo carrier (what we would typically call a 'general cargo' ship) isn't what cargo they're carrying; plenty of Fednav and Polsteam bulkers carry steel or machinery into the Great Lakes, and plenty of BBC or HHL multipurpose ships carry grain or other bulk cargoes. Neither is it the presence of cargo-handling cranes that makes the distiction; many Wagenborg multipurpose ships don't have cranes (ie they're 'gearless') and plenty of Fednav bulkers have cranes (ie they're 'geared'). What makes the difference is a ship's cargo hold configuration. A bulker has fixed partitions (bulkheads) between holds, and no 'tweendecks' or horizontal partitions in the hold that could serve as a floor or ceiling for cargo; a bulker's holds are cavernous unbroken wells that span the full depth of the ship's hull. What was traditionally called a general cargo ship had tweendecks. Aboard the modern equivalent, a 'multipurpose dry cargo carrier', usually some or all of both tweendecks and bulkheads are moveable. This provides for a huge variety of hold configurations, allowing a ship to be very flexible. Some multipurpose dry cargo carriers can be seen on Lakes visits with all or almost all of their tweendecks / bulkheads stored on deck or stacked inside one end of their cargo hold, meaning their hold is one open space, ideal for uniform bulk cargoes or for oversized project cargo. Other times some or all of their bulkheads and tweendecks are setup throughout their hold, providing a number of different compartments to carry multiple pieces of equipment or varieties of cargo.