Annual casualty figures from international dry cargo shipping association Intercargo highlight continuing improvement in the safety performance of the sector. The Association's Bulk Carrier Casualty Report, which can be viewed via the Intercargo website, records the yearly loss of vessels of over 10,000 DWT and lives across the dry bulk sector, with the intention of monitoring the impact of safety measures in the sector across the globe.
Intercargo said the bulk carrier fleet has grown significantly in recent years to cater for the world's growing economy. Between 2014 and 2023, the number of vessels increased by 20 per cent (to 12,200 according to the statistics used for the purposes of the report), with today's bulk fleet representing more than 40 per cent of world tonnage and carrying an estimated 55 per cent of the global transport work. Despite the fleet growth, encouraging statistics show that the loss of vessels continues to fall.
The association said areas of concern remain including cargo liquefaction or other moisture related cargo failure mechanisms, which pose the greatest risk to life, contributing to the loss of 55 lives or 61.8 per cent of the total loss of life over the past 10 years. Groundings remain the biggest cause of ship losses. Enhancement of safety awareness by all parties, and especially the need for stakeholders to provide ships' crews with the correct cargo characteristics details, remains a priority to reduce casualties even further.
The reduction of incidents, as revealed in the report, can be attributed to continual safety improvements implemented by ship operators in tandem with enhanced legislation within the sector. A significant contributing factor to the safety performance of bulk carriers is the development and implementation of an improved international regulatory framework.The adoption of new technology to improve ship design is also a major causal factor.