GREAT SHIPPING BOOM.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 263, 6 November 1912, Page 6

GREAT SHIPPING BOOM.

RISE IN FREIGHTS AND SHARES.

OIL-TANK SHIP DEMAND

The shipping world is passing through an era of prosperity that is almost without an equal in its history, and there is no sign of the high"water mark having been reached. The causes of the present "boom" can be summarised as Record trade expansion, labor troubles, and the extraordinary demand for oil-tank I ships. A prominent shipowner in Leadenhall Street, London, informed a representative of the Daily Mail that the opening of new markets was one of the features of the past two years. . ■ ' ' "British East Africa is one. of these markets and a very promising one. Then, we have^ the soya bean trade with Vladivostok and Dalny, which is growing year by year, and South America is looming bigger and bigger. The result is that more_ ships are required than those existing at the present time and the demand, is growing. There is a dearth of steamers and an excess of goods to be shipped. Then there is the increasing demand for oil-tank steamers. Oil must be brought to this country in ejnormous and ever-increasing quantities, and consequently ships must be had at any price.. A record number of these oil-tank steamers are being built in our yards and at record prices. DEARER SHIPBUILDING;

"The first effect of these conditiois has been to send up the cost of shipbuilding from £5 per ton a year ago to £7 or even £8 to-day. In. other words, a 7500-ton cargo steamer, which would have cost £44,000 to build in September of last year, cannot be built under £52,000 to-day. Simultaneously came the increase in the freight rates,'and in this- respect shipowners are coining money recuperating themselves for the losses of the last few years. •

"Here is a table showing rates obtaining in 1909 as compared with the, most recent quotations to-day:—

1909 Now. To Per ton Per ton Mone Video ... 7s 6d ... 23s Od Bahia Blanca ... 10s 6d ... 23s Od Port Said 7s 6d ... 13s Od From New York (only) Is 9d ... 3s. 6d Black Sea 5s 3d ... 17s Od "But the high-water mark has not been reached yet if 'the demand continues to exceed the supply. This it is likely to do. At present there are coal pits in the United Kingdom which are ■' idle owing to there being no steamers handy to ship the coal abroad. And the demand for ships elsewhere is as great as it is here. It is universal.

"Cargo steamers from the Mediterranean are rushing home or across the Atlantic to America in ballast—that is, without cargo—preferring to lose in homeward freights what they reap in time and the subsequent outward freights."

This remarkable prosperity in the snipping trade has been reflected in a general advance in the prices of shipping companies' shares, which for months past have been attracting, excited attention on the Stock Exchange. The rise in share prices has been fanned by many amalgamation rumors, which have been prompted chiefly by the vigorous absorption and expansion policy of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. The move- j ments in P. and O. deferred and 1 Royal Mail stock have been quite re- j markable. I