According to the Global Marine Trends 2030 report, China will continue to grow, prosper and evolve into the role of a dominant world superpower, particularly with regards to the commercial maritime shipping industry. In fact, it has been widely suggested that the Chinese shipping industry will likely own and operate up to 25 per cent of the world’s commercial shipping fleet, by the year 2030.
In order to meet the rising demand from China and the other prospering nations in the emerging and developed world, the shipping industry is expected to increase its transport capacity from nine billion tonnes a year to between nineteen billion and twenty-four billion tonnes a year. In doing so, the world’s container ship fleet will double its current carrying capacity to 450 million gross tonnes, by the end of 2030.
In 2008, about 13 percent of world freight exports from more than 200 countries ($2.1 trillion out of $16 trillion) were bound for the United States. Of this amount, 55 percent was oceanborne cargo, 20 percent was air cargo, and about 25 percent was carried by land modes of transportation.
China will see the largest growth in commercial fleet ownership, rivalling Greece and the rest of the European countries combined. China will become the world’s primary maritime market, leading in seaborne trade, shipbuilding and vertically integrated ownership and ship management. The economic development of India follows closely behind China, and it is expected to become a giant driver of global trade in an order of magnitude similar to China.
A leading European shipping line has ordered 20 ships for 2015 with a capacity of 18,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEU). This is the equivalent of a continuous lane of heavy goods vehicles from Rotterdam to Paris.
Here is a 36 page presentation of Global Marine Trends 2030.
Above is a map of shipping routes and volumes
The bulk carrier fleet will increase capacity by 140 per cent to 720 million gross tonnes, the tanker fleet by 84 per cent to 460 million gross tonnes and the liquefied natural gas fleet by 110 per cent to 80 million gross tonnes.
The increased capacity will be needed to bring China 265 per cent more coal, 300 per cent more oil and 500 per cent more natural gas by 2030.
The report also predicts the number of floating oil and gas platforms will more than double from 270 today to more than 618 in 2030.
Offshore oil will account for 48 per cent of global extraction by 2030, up from 40 per cent in 2015, while offshore gas will account for 42 per cent of global extraction, up from 34 per cent.
The 900 offshore wind turbines installed in 2010 will increase a hundredfold to 90,000 by 2030 while the number of ocean wave devices will increase from 22 in 2010 to 22,000 in 2030, it predicts.
Global Marine Fuel trends to 2030 (60 pages)
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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