Small reduction of the Greek-owned fleet

The Greek-owned fleet over 1,000 gt decreased by 27 ships in March 2023 compared to the same month of 2019. According to the data published by the London Hellenic Maritime Cooperation Committee (Committee) on March 1, 2023, the Greek-owned fleet consisted of of 4,113 ships of various categories, with a carrying capacity of 349,963,241 DWT and 204,676,437 GT. Compared to the previous year’s figures, this represents a decrease of 27 vessels, 5,379,453 DWT and 5,400,836 GT, compared to 4,140 vessels in March 2022. The figures include 194 vessels of various classes on order at the shipyards, in total 15,062,722 DWT and 12,464,797 GT.

The Greek-flagged fleet has decreased in terms of number of ships, DWT and GT, now consisting of 499 ships, 31,389,394 GT and 53,221,569 DWT, in contrast to the previous year’s figures of 570 ships, 35,600,214 GT and 59,614,661 DWT.

Greek shipping companies control 24.61% of the world’s tanker fleet, 15.81% of the Ore and Bulk fleet and 10.45% of liquefied gas ships.

The Greek-owned fleet is registered under approximately 32 flags. Overall, the flags of Liberia and the Marshall Islands are at the forefront of the Greek-owned fleet with 1080 and 1066 Greek ships, respectively, in their registers. In terms of DWT, Liberia with 99,165,631 represents 28.34% and the Marshall Islands with 84,030,818 representing 24.01% of the total DWT of the Greek fleet. The 499 Greek-flagged ships represent 15.21% of the total DWT of the Greek-owned fleet. It is followed by Panama with 327 vessels of 20,455,442 DWT, Cyprus with 213 vessels of 15,079,112 DWT and the Bahamas with 209 vessels of 18,295,416 DWT.

The average age of the Greek controlled fleet in ships increased slightly compared to the previous year, but, nevertheless, it is still years below the average age of the world fleet. The average age of the Greek controlled fleet, based on the number of ships, now stands at 12.6 years compared to 16.7 years for the global fleet. For GT and DWT, it is 10.8 and 10.9 years respectively, compared to 11.3 and 11.3 for the global fleet. The average age of the Greek-flagged fleet registered a slight increase, in terms of number of ships, GT and DWT, at 16.1, 9.5 and 9.3 years respectively against 14.2, 10 and 9.7 years in 2022 .

Also six major international classifiers have on their books the majority of the Greek controlled fleet:

Japan’s ClassNK leads with 802 ships (780 ships in 2022) followed by ABS with 755 ships (808 ships in 2022), Lloyd’s Register with 744 ships (773 ships in 2022), BV with 719 ships (712 ships in 2022 ), DNV with 592 vessels (597 vessels in 2022), RINA with 249 vessels (237 vessels in 2022).

YEAR                VESSELS NO      DWT                 GT
MARCH 2013    3,677           265,336,520     155,988,384

MARCH 2014    3,901          290,847,132     170,984,684

MARCH 2015   4,057          314,456,451      184,063,875

FEB/JU 2016   4,092         320,597,574      188,904,194

MARCH 2017   4,085        328,763,767      192,430,519

MARCH 2018 4,148          341,925,357      199,286,013

MARCH 2019 4,017          339,549,357      198,164,080

MARCH 2020 3,968        340,823,637      199,693,859

MARCH 2021 4,038        350,465,999      205,647,569

MARCH 2022 4,140        355,342,694      210,077,273

MARCH 2023 4,113         349,963,241     204,676,437