On the other hand, if the industry had a sharp working memory could it avoid the peak to trough cycles that it pushes itself into?
I recall sitting at one of the Containerisation International Liner Conference in April 2001, sandwiched between two senior executives from two different carriers. One was certain that carriers would not order ships for at least two years due to the market downturn. The other noted that his company had just placed an order for what was then the largest ships, 6,000 teu. The sad reality was that both were right as demand exploded due to globalisation but over-capacity ultimately was a companion.
The industry has long life assets so in theory short term cycles do not matter and correspondingly, planning has been given a back seat. In practice, this will lead to financial disaster and as we have seen in recent months, to personal disappointments as senior management is moved aside for newcomers.
In March, planning was made much easier. The Container Trades Statistics in the UK, the exclusive agent of World Liner Data (WLD), published a global set of statistics back to January 2011 of full container (teu) flows on a global basis. The WLD is made up of the major liner companies. Now there is access to global flows of consumer goods at the container level, something that has previously only been estimated on the basis of conversion from tonnes to containers.
On first sight, the global numbers look good. For example, the 2011 total of 120m teu is virtually the same as the numbers from the World Trade Service, produced by IHS Global Insight. The data will be published monthly.
Will this help to avoid ordering at the wrong time or reducing over capacity? I do not know. Now, what was I talking about?