World shipping and shipbuilding: state and prospects. Russian Merchant Marine

The merchant marine fleet is usually characterized by two main indicators: the number of ships in operation and their tonnage, which is determined either by cargo capacity or by carrying capacity.
Information on the number of vessels varies greatly depending on the size of the vessels taken into account. According to Lloyd's Register, the most authoritative British company in charge of these issues, in 1950 there were 31 thousand ships in the world, and in the early 1990s. their number exceeded 80 thousand. However, if only vessels with a carrying capacity of more than 300 tons are taken into account, then their total number will be approximately 40 thousand. The total displacement of the ships of the world merchant fleet in 2005 reached approximately 600 million gross tons, and their carrying capacity was 900 million dwt.
The development of the navy, as well as maritime shipping in general, sensitively reflects the changes taking place in the world economy. This is evidenced by the data in Table 148.
An analysis of table 148 allows us to draw the main conclusion that in the second half of the 20th century. the gross tonnage of the world's maritime fleet has increased 5 times (and since the beginning of the century it has grown 20 times). However, this growth has not been uniform. Until the early 1980s. The tonnage of the seafloor increased quite rapidly, but then even its decline began, caused by a general decrease in world trade and especially oil transport as a result of the energy crisis. Naturally, the reduction in tonnage affected the oil tanker fleet to the greatest extent: dozens of supertankers were sold for scrap or laid up.
Table 148

Only at the very end of the 1980s, when world trade resumed recovery, did the tonnage of the sea fleet begin to grow again, and this growth continued into the 1990s. It is explained, on the one hand, by an increase in demand for maritime transportation, and on the other hand, by the technical improvement of the fleet itself, for example, an increase in the speed of ships, a reduction in their stay in ports, and the introduction of computerization. At the same time, the tonnage of the marine fleet was also updated: in the late 1990s. its annual increase due to new vessels was approximately 35 million dwt (with decommissioning of 25 million dwt).
During the second half of the XX century. Significant changes have also taken place in the composition of the world's navy, associated primarily with changes in the structure of international trade.
Before the onset of the global energy crisis in the mid-1970s. about half of the world's shipping tonnage was made up of oil tankers. At the same time, supertankers with a deadweight of 200-500 thousand tons prevailed among them (the largest of them was considered the Helos Falls tanker with a deadweight of 535 thousand tons sailing under the Greek flag). Bulk carriers for the transportation of dry cargo, ships for the transportation of general cargo were significantly inferior to tankers in terms of tonnage. But after the energy crisis, the composition of the world fleet began to change quite quickly: both the number of tankers and their share in tonnage began to decrease, while the performance of other types of vessels, on the contrary, increased.
At the same time, the bulk fleet began to move from universal to specialized ships - coal carriers, ore carriers, timber carriers, car carriers, banana carriers, etc. The number of container carriers began to increase. This gave rise to a completely new type of ships, where loading and unloading is carried out not in the traditional vertical (with the help of winches and cranes), but in a horizontal way; they are called “Ro-Ro” ships (from the English “Roll-on” - “Roll-off”). Combined vessels also appeared in the merchant fleet: ore tankers, grain carriers, grain carriers, car carriers, etc., methane carriers for transporting liquefied natural gas.
As a result, by the end of the 1990s the composition of the world fleet was already different. Of the total number of ships, about 40 thousand 17.5 thousand were general cargo ships, 6.9 thousand were oil tankers, 5.9 thousand were bulk carriers, 3.5 thousand were passenger ships, 2.2 thousand . - container ships, 1 thousand - methane tankers and 3 thousand - ships of other types (excluding fishing). Their share in world tonnage is shown in Figure 107. By the way, it is noteworthy that in terms of the number of vessels, the tanker fleet is much inferior to the fleet of ships for the transport of general cargo, and in terms of tonnage it far exceeds it. Consequently, the tanker fleet is still dominated by very large vessels, supertankers. It can also be noted that almost 3/4 of the total tonnage of the marine fleet now falls on bulk cargo ships (tankers and bulk carriers).
The sharp decrease in the number and tonnage of passenger ships is explained by an equally sharp decrease in maritime passenger traffic. In most cases, passenger ships are now used not to serve regular flights, but for sea tourist cruises. Compared to the giant passenger liners of the first half of the 20th century, such as the Queen Elizabeth (83.6 thousand GRT), the Queen Mary, the Normandy (79.3 thousand GRT), the United States and etc., and their tonnage became smaller.

The famous English giant liner "Queen Elizabeth" was built at the shipyards of Glasgow in 1938 and named after the Queen of England (the Queen Mother, who died in 2002 at the age of 102). Before the advent of supertankers, this liner was not only the largest passenger ship, but also the largest ship in the world's navy. The Queen Elizabeth had 14 decks, of which four - sports, sun, boat and pleasure - were located in the superstructure. The six upper decks housed all the passenger cabins and most of the public areas. The decks were connected by 35 elevators. The rudder of the liner weighed 140 tons. The diameter of the chimneys was such that three trains running in parallel could be passed through each of them. During World War II, the Queen Elizabeth was used as a military transport. In 1944, she set a kind of record by taking on board the largest number of people in the history of navigation - 15,200 troops. After the war, she transported American troops home from Europe. But the further fate of this famous liner was rather tragic. First, it was bought by an American company, then at an auction it was bought by a millionaire from Hong Kong, who paid $ 3.1 million for it. He also converted the ship into a floating university, and the date of its first voyage was already announced, when in January 1972 on The Queen Elizabeth caught fire. Thus perished the world's largest passenger ship, a masterpiece of English shipbuilding. Only in 1996, a passenger ship with a tonnage of 101 thousand tons was launched at an Italian shipyard, breaking the Queen Elizabeth record. It was built by order of an American company for cruise voyages in the Caribbean.
In general, forecasts regarding the future of the world's navy look relatively optimistic. In any case, at the beginning of the XXI century. the tonnage of the world sea fleet is increasing annually by 1-2%. The growth of the fleet is due to the increase in tonnage in both developed and developing countries, the share of which increased from 10% in 1980 to more than 20% in the late 1990s, and in absolute terms - up to 150 million dwt. The tonnage of the sea fleet of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the same time decreased to 4% of the world.
Table 149

* "Cheap flags". ** Excluding the Hong Kong maritime fleet (924 vessels with a tonnage of 25.4 million gt).
Table 149 contains information about the navies of individual countries. It contains data for 22 countries, each of which has a merchant marine fleet with a gross tonnage of more than 5 million tons.
An analysis of Table 149 shows that, unlike the vast majority of other similar lists, here developing countries are by no means in the "tail" of the table. They not only occupy the first two places in the world, but in the top ten countries in terms of these indicators are actually on a par with developed countries. In addition, let us add that the dynamics of the process is such that the tonnage of the marine fleet of economically developed countries (especially Greece, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden) has been declining quite rapidly lately, while the fleet of developing countries is growing. In China, India, Brazil, and some other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, such growth of the fleet reflects, first of all, the development of their own economy, its integration into the international geographical division of labor, into the world liner and tramp shipping. However, in most cases it is explained by the provision of so-called cheap (or "convenient", "dummy") flags. They are also called open registration flags.
Liberia and Panama were the first to pass on such registration, under the flags of which the largest fleets of the world are now located. Using Table 149, it is easy to calculate that the modern fleet of Panama in terms of tonnage far exceeds the fleets of such traditional maritime powers of Europe as Greece, Norway, Germany, Italy, Denmark, combined! Then Cyprus, Malta, the Bahamas, as well as Bermuda and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in America, Vanuatu in Oceania, etc. embarked on the same path. And now the Bahamas and Malta entered the top six countries - owners of the merchant fleet. As a result, the share of ships flying "cheap flags" increased from 19% in 1970 to 34% in 1990 and exceeded 70% in 2006. However, these statistics should not be misleading. In fact, the fleet sailing under "cheap flags" is actually 2/3 owned by shipowners from economically developed countries of the West (USA, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, etc.).
As for the reasons for such a "flight" of tonnage from Western countries to developing countries, they are as follows. The absence of labor legislation in the countries of "open registration" allows Western shipowners, when recruiting ship crews from residents of these countries, to save on the wages of seafarers, on the costs of ensuring the safety of ships, and also to avoid paying high taxes. That is why the transfer of the fleet under "cheap flags" especially intensified during the crisis of shipping and the general reduction in world tonnage. The same circumstance that the crews of Liberian, Panamanian and other ships flying such flags are usually poorly trained and account for 3/4 of all accidents was not taken into account. But every year in the world 200-250 ships perish from such accidents.
In 1990, the Soviet Union ranked fourth in the world in terms of tonnage of the merchant marine, after Liberia, Panama and Japan. When this fleet was distributed among the CIS and Baltic countries, Russia got ships with a carrying capacity of 10.6 million dwt, i.e., a little more than half of the fleet that the USSR Ministry of Navy had. In the 1990s the state of the Russian navy was deteriorating all the time. This applies to its quantitative indicators, first of all, to a sharp reduction in the total tonnage as a result of the decommissioning of obsolete ships, as well as its flight under “flags of convenience”. This also applies to many qualitative indicators of his work. Therefore, a significant part of the Russian fleet in the world freight market turned out to be simply uncompetitive. And the other part began to serve the transportation of foreign companies, while for the transportation of domestic export-import cargo, it is increasingly necessary to charter ships abroad. The program for the revival of the country's merchant fleet, specially developed by the Government of Russia, has not been fully implemented.

19:12 - REGNUM

Ninety-two years ago, on October 25, 1925, the first Soviet merchant ships "Grigory Zinoviev" and "Comrade Stalin" left the stocks of the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad. The launching of these ships marked the beginning of the Soviet merchant fleet.

(cc) www.siicex.gub.uy

On July 18, 1924, the joint-stock company "Soviet Merchant Fleet" ("Sovtorgflot") was organized, uniting transport ships that previously belonged to various people's commissariats, departments and joint-stock companies, including mixed ones, with the participation of foreign capital. This association laid the foundations for the centralized management of maritime transport as a single branch of the national economy. The foundation was laid for the creation of infrastructure, including not only ships, but also ports, shipyards, and educational institutions.

During all the years of the existence of the Soviet Union, the merchant marine was considered as one of the main factors in ensuring the economic and military security of the state, as well as a source of foreign exchange earnings.

After the Great Patriotic War, in the first post-war five-year plan, only 3 factories built a fleet in our country: Krasnoye Sormovo, Navashinsky and Sretensky, and from foreign countries - enterprises from Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland, China. In subsequent years, the Nikolaev Plant named after A.I. Nosenko, Kherson, Admiralty, Marine Plant in Sevastopol, Gorohovets, Severodvinsk, Khabarovsk, Petrozavod in Leningrad and others. Ships were built abroad in the shipyards of the GDR, the Polish People's Republic, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Hungarian People's Republic, the Socialist Republic of Romania, as well as England, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Japan and, especially, Finland, where the Soviet icebreaker was built. fleet.

The marine merchant fleet was constantly replenished and in the period 1971-1985. intensively updated. During this period, the fleet annually included from 50 to 80 new ships with a total tonnage of 0.7 to 1 million tons. , took fifth place in the world among developed shipping countries. This period characterizes the intensive stage of the qualitative development of the merchant marine. The ships that replenished the domestic merchant fleet during this period had fundamentally new designs, devices and mechanisms.

With the collapse of the USSR (due to the division of territories and property), the unified transport system of the former state was disrupted, especially its maritime component. During the division in the Russian Federation, only 10 out of 16 shipping companies with a marine fleet with a total number of 798 units of ships with a total displacement of about 10 million tons remained. Most of the ships had an outrageous (20-year) age.

“Today, the Russian Federation is in the top 30-40 both in terms of tonnage and quantity,” such data was given by the director of the Department of State Policy in the field of sea and river transport of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, speaking at the 10th international forum “Transport Potential” Vitaly Klyuev.

Why did Russian ships begin to sail under foreign flags?

In 1973, the USSR Ministry of the Navy asked the government to allow the department to acquire new and used ships abroad under a long-term leasing or bareboat charter scheme. The formation of Sovcomflot was the result of a decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on March 23, 1973 to indirectly break the monopoly of foreign trade and provide the USSR Ministry of the Navy with the opportunity to purchase new and used ships under a long-term leasing scheme, the so-called bareboat charter

A foreign bank gave the Soviet side a loan for the purchase of a vessel, the property being acquired served as collateral. After paying off the loan, the ship was already wholly owned by the buyer. This scheme made it possible to expand the fleet without the use of public funds.

“Until the end of the 80s, banks agreed to register bareboat ships under the Soviet flag. Subsequently, due to the impossibility for foreign banks to apply a pledge right on the territory of the USSR, and then Russia, banks refused loans if they were not satisfied with the country of registration of the flag, and the most acceptable conditions could be found in the states of the "convenient" flag, - He speaks Vadim Kornilov, General Director of Sovcomflot in 1991-1999 - Foreign shipowners have already paved the way there - about 70% of the world's tonnage was registered offshore (Liberia, the Virgin Islands, Cyprus, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, etc.). Registering a company for one ship costs several (3-5) thousand dollars there.

Then it was decided to purchase new ships and comply with the law of those countries where the leasing was issued, to register ships in foreign jurisdictions.

“In the 90s, the government’s policy was such that ports should be developed, and we will hire a fleet abroad, - Vitaly Klyuev, Director of the Department of State Policy in the Field of Sea and River Transport of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, recalled. — To this day, we feel the consequences of such a short-sighted approach of those years.”

Vitaly Klyuev also noted that about 60% of the total export-import cargo turnover of the Russian Federation is carried out by sea, but only from 2% to 3% of all this cargo turnover is provided by ships flying the Russian flag. Everything else is transported by ships flying foreign flags.

“The Soviet Union in shipbuilding focused on other countries - these are Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania. And those shipbuilding capacities for civil shipbuilding, which were in the USSR, they went to other republics, V. Klyuev emphasized. — And now we are very dependent on the product that is produced by the shipbuilding industry, and today it is a foreign product.”

The approximate ratio for the production of ships for the USSR in the period from 71 to 85 was as follows: domestic factories produced 35% of the ships, socialist countries - 32.8%; Western European countries and Japan 32.2%, that is, two-thirds of all ships purchased in the USSR came from abroad.

Quote from Rising Star video. Special report by Alexander Lukyanov

How to return the Russian flag to ships?

The Ministry of Transport is taking various economic incentive measures. “Earlier it was called the return of ships under the Russian flag,” said V. Klyuev. - Now there is nothing to return, all these ships are old or decommissioned. Therefore, in order to replenish the fleet of ships under the Russian flag, amendments were made to the federal law 305-FZ of 2011 "On the support of shipbuilding and shipping."

The measures taken are bearing fruit. According to V. Klyuev, the number of courts in the international registry after the adoption of this law has increased almost four times. More than 100 ships under this law were built at Russian shipyards with subsequent registration under the state flag of the Russian Federation. But this is not enough, although the first step has been taken.

(cc) BenutzerWofratz

The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation came up with the following initiative: ships flying a foreign flag will be banned from transporting goods along the Northern Sea Route on domestic flights. The agency proposes to extend the concept of cabotage to the Northern Sea Route and thereby force shipowners operating in the Arctic to abandon the flags of offshore states.

“Today, the State Duma is drafting a bill that suggests that ships that transport cargo loaded in the waters of the Northern Sea Route, mined on the territory of the Russian Federation, should be transported by ships under the Russian flag. We hope that this issue will be resolved by the end of the year.” - said V. Klyuev.

the totality of the country's courts, together with their personnel, engaged in commercial activities. Sea cargo ships have always been the most important component of the merchant fleet and its main support in the financial sense. Passenger liners did not stop attracting people, but in general, for society, the transport of passengers has always been of less importance than the transport of goods. Numerous and varied ships of the merchant fleet differ in type and purpose. The total number of ships in the merchant fleet is also very large because it includes not only long-distance ships, but also many of those small ships that serve the waters of rivers, harbors and the sea coast. The merchant fleet - in the broad sense of the term - includes not only ships and seafarers, but also numerous coastal services: operational management bodies, repair and bunkering enterprises, marine insurance agencies and much more, in addition to shipyards, docks, berths and warehouses.

SAILBOATS COLUMBA - "Nina", "Pinta" and "Santa Maria" - in search of India.

Merchant ships, unlike military ones, are usually owned by private owners, whose position is relatively independent (sometimes the state owns part of the country's merchant fleet and manages its activities, but this is the exception rather than the rule). All modern maritime vessels have a national status, which is symbolized by the flag that flies over each vessel. Raising the flag implies the presence of official ship documents and a register certificate. National status entails both privileges and duties. It allows you to enlist the naval or diplomatic support of your own and friendly states in different parts of the world, but it also gives the government the right to dispose of private ships in emergency circumstances, and under normal circumstances to extend state regulations to them and to the conditions of their operation. These norms include requirements for the national composition of the crew, for checking the qualifications of the crew and attesting the command staff. Modern merchant ships can be divided into two categories, each of which has its own merits. Vessels of one category (liners), which includes most of the best ships, operate on certain lines, and voyages between ports on these routes are made at regular intervals. Another category consists of the so-called. tramps - vessels serving irregular cargo flows. After the Second World War, significant changes took place in maritime transport. Although the number of ships capable of taking on board more than 1000 tons of cargo increased only by 34% in the post-war years, the total tonnage of the merchant fleet of the countries of the world doubled, and the average deadweight jumped from 6300 to 9400 tons. The number of national flags increased sharply. The expansion of the national composition of the world merchant fleet has led to a decrease in the share of the former leaders of shipping in it. Although the total tonnage of the total British and Scandinavian ships increased from 32 to 47 million tons, its share in the total tonnage of the world merchant fleet fell from 40 to 29%. At the same time, the US share increased from 14% to 20%. An innovation in the merchant fleet of the 20th century. the practice of what is known as "flags of convenience" or "uncontrolled fleets" became common. Usually the flag above the vessel and the name of its home port indicate to whom it belongs and in whose legal sphere it operates. Maritime law was created on the basis of certain measures of responsibility and control on the part of states over their merchant fleet. In order to elude such control, and at the same time save on taxes and crew costs, new "fake" fleets appeared. These fleets arose precisely from those countries that in reality never had their own "legitimate" maritime transport, and many ships flying the flags of these states never called at the ports whose names are written on their stern. It began in the autumn of 1922, when the US Attorney General extended the Prohibition with all its amendments to all ships flying the US flag. This stopped the wholesale alcoholic supplies of two large liners that made voyages in the Caribbean. The solution was found when someone came up with the idea to launch these ships under the Panamanian flag. Later, other ships, especially American tankers, used the Panamanian flag to save money on high crew salaries, and during the war it proved to be a convenient way to evade government regulations and sail in areas closed to sea traffic. Thanks to this, by the beginning of World War II, the total carrying capacity of the Panamanian merchant fleet, which numbered 130 of its own ships, reached 1106 thousand tons. After the war, this fleet became even larger, but in 1949 it suddenly had a formidable rival. The government of Liberia has given one of the American companies the pre-emptive right to the wide sea transportation of goods. At the same time, Liberia received a coveted increase in its budget from the toll, and the American company received a generous "fee for services" to conduct specific business in New York. For 10 years, the Liberian merchant fleet has become the third largest in the world; it became 1018 vessels with a total carrying capacity of 18,387 thousand tons, and Panama was pushed to sixth place. By 1959, the German merchant fleet showed by 1959 far surpassed the total volumes that were characterized in 1939. The Japanese, whose large merchant fleet was also destroyed, by 1959 also managed to exceed its pre-war level in terms of the total tonnage of their ships, and in 1994 they reached seventh place among the merchant fleets. fleets of the world and built 243 out of a total of 630 new ships.

Between 1939 and 1959, the number of tankers in the world almost doubled (the number of registered oil tankers increased from 1661 to 3307 units), and their total tonnage more than tripled (total deadweight changed from 16,915 to 57,629 thousand tons) . In the future, the oil fleet grew even faster. The efficiency of tankers has been constantly increasing, since the larger the size of the tanker, the more economically profitable it is to operate, which distinguishes oil tankers from other types of bulky transports. Another post-war innovation was the increase in the number of ships carrying bulk cargoes such as coal and ore. Already in 1959, the merchant fleet of the world numbered 940 bulk carriers with a total carrying capacity of 9058 thousand tons. Bulk carriers up to 300 m long and with a carrying capacity of more than 60 thousand tons were built.

At the end of the 20th century Large container carriers with a horizontal method of loading - unloading of the Ro-Ro type and lighter carriers have become widespread, providing reloading in the road with their own means with an increase in the productivity of cargo operations by several times.
see also
VESSELS OF RIVER AND COASTAL NAVIGATION;
HARBOR.

- Command of the Fleet, the main body of the operational control of the formations of the Navy. The command of the fleet was an important part of the leadership of the German Navy, in fact, it was transferred to its jurisdiction ...
Navy of the Third Reich
- 1) the general name of various ships, vessels and watercraft. By affiliation, naval, sea, river F....
Dictionary of military terms
- a set of vessels used for activities at sea that are not military. nature: for the transportation of goods, passengers, luggage, mail, for fishing and other crafts, mining, production of towing, ...
- an agreement between two or more states that determines the terms of trade relations between ...
Reference commercial dictionary
Political science. Vocabulary.
- a set of ships of a certain purpose, type or district at a deployment ...
Big encyclopedic polytechnic dictionary
- see Commercial fleet. ...
Marine vocabulary
- a set of ships of the same purpose, for example. military F. , trade F. . They also say fishing F., fishing F., whaling F. ...
Marine vocabulary
- Military F. The attached two tables contain data for comparing the military F. of the main maritime powers ...
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron
-, the operational association of the Navy of large states. Designed to perform operational and strategic tasks in a particular oceanic or maritime theater of operations...
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- the totality of the courts of the country, together with their personnel, engaged in commercial activities. Sea cargo ships have always been the most important component of the merchant fleet and its main support in the financial sense ...
Collier Encyclopedia
- an operational-strategic association of the Navy of large states, designed to conduct military operations in the ocean theater of operations ...
- a set of ships of a certain purpose, type or area of deployment and ...
Big encyclopedic dictionary
- in e and on e, see in - on, p. 2c ...
Management in Russian
- French - flotte. Italian - flotta. Old Norse - floti. Anglo-Saxon - flota. The word "" appeared in Russian at the end of the 17th century. from Romance languages, where it is probably a borrowing from Germanic...
Etymological dictionary of the Russian language Semenov
- many ships. Community of courts Cf. Flotte , Fleet - , Flotte - . Flotter - float. Wed Fluere - flow...
Explanatory-phraseological dictionary of Michelson

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The Merchant Marine is a collection of ships with personnel currently engaged in commercial activities.

The purpose of the merchant marine

The department is responsible for the following tasks:

observance of peace and maintenance of military order;
protection of territorial maritime borders;
protection of national interests of citizens.

In addition to the main ones listed above, there are secondary, but no less important tasks that the merchant fleet is involved in.

During the existence of the structure, the cargo has played an important role in the development of the economic condition of the country, being the financial backbone of the state.

The fleet is the backbone of shipping. Today, the merchant fleet includes not only vessels and ships of long-distance voyage, but also small water transport. Small vessels are engaged in servicing the sea coast and water area.

What boats are part of the merchant fleet

In addition to large and small vehicles, the country's merchant fleet also includes:

organizations and enterprises engaged in repair and towing work;
operational management bodies;
marine insurance agencies;
maintenance centers for offshore bunkers, shipyards, moorings.

The merchant marine is a subdivision, for the most part belonging to private structures. Thus, their activities are carried out independently of the leadership of the head of state. But there are cases when the head of the republic interferes in the activities of the merchant fleet.

How to recognize a merchant ship

A floating facility automatically acquires the status of an official maritime transport if the country's national flag is displayed on it. This is a symbol of the status of a sea vessel.

The state flag hoisted on the ship implies that the ship is officially registered in the register of marine navigation facilities, has a certificate confirming this and a full package of ship documents.

Due to the national status, the ship receives privileges in the form of diplomatic support not only of the ruling state, but also of neighboring friendly countries. The government has the full right to dispose of the private ships of the merchant fleet in case of emergency.

The Merchant Marine is a subdivision whose management and operation are subject to state regulations.

Russian economic centers are located far from the coasts. In addition, our country has an obsolete merchant fleet and an underdeveloped port infrastructure.

We don't need Emma

In total, 1,130 Russian ships with a total deadweight of 5.7 million tons sail the seas and oceans. Of these: 215 tankers, 718 dry cargo ships, 28 bulk carriers, 27 chemical carriers, 35 oil and ore carriers, 11 roro ships, 7 tankers. The tonnage of the Russian fleet is approximately 1.5% of the world. In terms of carrying capacity, the Russian fleet is only 19th in the world.

The merchant fleet of the Russian Federation - 1130 ships, of which only 430 sail under the Russian flag.

All of them sail under the flag of the Russian Federation, but only 430 ships are controlled by the state. 60% of ships fly the flags of convenience of Liberia, Malta, Cyprus and Panama. The number of ships under the Russian flag is decreasing, while under flags of convenience it is growing. Imported maritime transport services cost Russian cargo owners $10-15 billion annually.

Most Russian ships have gone beyond the age of competitiveness, which for the navy does not exceed 15 years. During this time, ships in the world have become larger and more technologically advanced: they have become different. There are no or almost no modern container ships, ships with horizontal loading, lighter carriers (transportation of goods in lighters, barges). However, they are hardly necessary. The specifics of the cargo fleet of the Russian Federation is determined by the nature of the cargo.

For example, there are few container ships in Russia: only 0.3% of the world's container fleet.

On the one hand, this is bad. After all, all developed economies operate with container ships, more precisely, super-container ships.

Container ships account for almost 1/3 of sea freight (in total, sea accounts for 80% of all freight in the world, in the Russian Federation - 60%, and if there were 80%, then goods would be cheaper). The capacity, the size of container ships, is constantly growing and now monsters plow the oceans, the dimensions of which are hard to imagine if you don’t see it yourself.

If by the beginning of the 1990s the capacity of a container ship of 2-4 thousand TEU seemed very large, now even Panamax class vessels (294 m long, 32.3 m wide with a draft of 12.04 m, capacity 7 thousand TEU) are considered average. Because in 2006 A.P. Moller-Maersk Group built the container ship Emma Maersk (length - 396.8 m; width - 56 m; draft - 13.7 m; capacity - 12 thousand TEU). "Emma" no longer climbed into the Panama Canal, so the Suez Canal had to be deepened. By 2016 Moller-Maersk Group will build ships for 16-18 thousand containers.

The margin for cargo transportation by sea is about 2%. By rail - ten%.

Large ships have advantages in fuel economy: up to 40%, if we compare the consumption with the tonnage of cargo, then the benefit is huge. The margin for cargo transportation by sea is 2%, while by rail - up to 10%, and by cars about 25%. That's what Russia needs! But if you think about it, when was saving for Russia an important task?

And most importantly, the desire to have a fleet of super-container ships will entail the need to build modern ports, large-scale dredging, expansion of channels, estuaries, water areas, the creation of giant container sites, logistics centers, it will be necessary to train personnel, create a system of educational institutions, re-profile production for the needs of the marine trade. Most importantly, 75% of Russia's external cargo turnover is raw material exports. And for the import of foreign container ships is enough.

Cargo, fleets and ports

First of all, exports are dominated by crude oil - 55% of shipments. In the structure of export dry cargoes, the share of coal is 34%, metals - 16%, mineral fertilizers - 8%, timber cargoes - 6%. In imports, dry cargoes account for 99.3%, while 50% of imported dry cargoes are containers.

Due to the overwhelming predominance of raw materials in exports, 75% of cargo is transported by tramp shipping (non-regular transportation of passing cargo), and not by liner shipping. Therefore, the largest carrier companies carry out tramp transportation.

Of the companies involved in liner shipping, we can name the FESCO transport group, which owns a fleet of 32 container ships with a total capacity of 28 thousand TEUs and a fleet of 5 ro-ro vessels with a total capacity of 2.7 thousand vehicles. The FESCO Trump fleet consists of 39 ships - bulk carriers, icebreaking transport ships, ro-ro ships and timber carriers.

Russian fleet-owning companies are mainly engaged in tramp shipping.

The remaining large Russian fleet owners operate mainly with tankers. PRISCO's fleet consists of 20 tankers and 1 bulk carrier. The fleet of the Novoship Group (OAO Novorossiysk Shipping Company) consists of 48 tankers of various classes and one bulk carrier. Lukoil has a fleet of 55 tankers, Norilsk Nickel owns 8 bulk carriers, oilmen TNK-BP control a small fleet of tankers, Rosneft also has a few tankers, and Sovcomflot, the main carrier of hydrocarbons, has a fleet of 59 ships. The listed companies are mainly engaged in tramp shipping.

As for the port infrastructure, it is quite sufficient for the current state of the Russian merchant fleet, although it is unlikely for the scale of the country. Therefore, new terminals are being actively built in many ports, however, they are intended for the same transshipment of raw materials.

In total, there are 11 large ICCs in the Russian Federation, approximately 50% of cargo is handled in the ports of the near abroad: Odessa, Ventspils, Tallinn, Klaipeda.

At the end of 2012, the cargo turnover of Russian seaports amounted to 565.5 million tons, which is 5.6% more than in 2011.

The indicators of transshipment of dry cargo increased by 7.3%, containers by 8.3%, transshipment of liquid cargo increased by 4.3%; In 2012, 446.2 million tons of cargo were transshipped in export cargo, which is 8.9% more than in 2011, and 47.4 million tons of import cargo, which is 6.2% more than in 2011.

Up to 90% of goods from China are exported by sea.

Chinese Navy

Comparing the Russian merchant marine with the Chinese is incorrect. And that's why. For the PRC, the merchant fleet is very important, it keeps export power. It was the merchant fleet that to a large extent contributed to the fact that the Celestial Empire became the flagship of the world economy. Up to 90% of China's foreign trade cargo is transported by sea, and up to 83% of oil is imported.

Data on the size of China's merchant fleet varies from source to source. This is due not only to the traditional secrecy of statistical data in quasi-communist countries, but also to the fact that the PRC fleet is large and diverse; the calculation can be done with or without Hong Kong figures. Hong Kong itself is a powerful maritime metropolis with a huge merchant fleet. But more on that another time.