Global shipping fleet ages as shipowners resist shift to greener fuels

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The global shipping fleet has reached its oldest average age in almost 15 years, despite growing pressure on shipowners to order new, greener vessels and help decarbonise global trade.

Shipbrokers, who advise owners on shipbuilding, said the industry is hesitating to order new vessels that run on greener fuels, amid uncertainty over the availability of these energy resources.

At the same time, shipowners have cashed in on surging demand for second-hand ships from operators of a “shadow fleet” transporting Russian oil that is the subject of sanctions, meaning many vessels that belong on scrap heaps are still sailing.

The average age of the global shipping fleet hit 13.7 years in December, the oldest since 2009, according to data compiled by shipbroker Clarksons and shared with the Financial Times. The data excludes small ships with a volume less than 5,000 gross tonnes.

The container shipping fleet reached 14.3 years late last year, the highest since Clarksons began collecting data in 1993. The average age of tankers, which carry oil and other liquids, hit a two-decade peak of 12.9 years.

Richard Matthews, research director at shipbroker Gibson, said “we have seen hardly any tankers scrapped” since the invasion of Ukraine, which prompted western governments to impose restrictions on trading Russian goods. A shadow fleet of companies with opaque ownership has stepped in to transport Russian oil, buying up older and cheaper tankers, which large oil companies often consider scrapping after 15 years of wear and tear.

The market value of a 15-year-old Aframax tanker, the medium-sized type often used to transport Russian oil, has surged 129 per cent to $40mn since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to Gibson data. The market price for selling Aframax ships for scrap, meanwhile, has increased just 40 per cent to $9.2mn.

Shipowners “aren’t scrapping because there’s so much money to be made”, said Matthews. The Ukraine war has also indirectly driven up the cost of shipping oil, as Europe buys its oil imports from more distant producers than Russia and tanker owners are paid more to travel longer distances.

Shipping companies may also be reluctant to order new vessels due to uncertainty over green regulation and alternative fuels, said Stephen Gordon, research director at Clarksons. A range of alternatives to fossil fuels has been proposed, including ammonia and green methanol, although these resources remain scarce.

The shipping fleet is ageing despite increasing pressure from regulators and customers to decarbonise. This summer, diplomats at the UN’s International Maritime Organization set a target for shipping, which delivers about 90 per cent of the world’s traded goods, to achieve net zero emissions “by or around” 2050. 

But they are yet to agree on economic measures, such as a carbon levy, that would narrow the current price gap between fossil fuels and more expensive green fuels.

Tristan Smith, a shipping and energy researcher at UCL, said weak environmental regulations risked rewarding investments in older ships and meant that “higher polluting ships stay in the fleet longer”.

Gordon said that the ageing fleet was also the natural result of vessels nearing the end of their life cycle following the last shipbuilding peak in 2010. But the trend is unlikely to reverse imminently. Clarksons estimates that shipbuilding capacity has dropped 35 per cent since 2010, as shipbuilders consolidated in recent years.

“We are seeing a ramp-up in [new builds] for container and LNG [ships], which might moderate the ageing trends. But in bulkers and tankers there are small new-build programmes so the ageing trends will continue,” Gordon said.