Is slowing down always the answer to combat soaring oil prices?

摘要

Towering bunker prices are clearly here to stay and they will finally lead to either lowering vessel design speeds, or to a further increase in vessel size. But will short-term speed changes solve every case? A rough theoretical estimation suggests that adding one vessel to an existing fleet of seven on a 21 days return schedule (two sailings a week), facilitates a 14% speed reduction. This means propulsion power reduction of about 30% for the whole fleet and an increase in sailing frequency (one sailing every 3 days rather than 3.5 days) and obviously an increase in sailing time (+3 days). Crew and capital costs will increase but still a net gain is feasible. However, not every trade has such an easy gain. A smaller number of vessels on short haul trades complicates the short-term speed regime changes. It is clear in the long-term, increasing vessel size will payoff better.