In contrast to the bulk cargo market, where parcel sizes are usually big enough to fill an entire ship (e.g. crude oil, iron ore, coal, grain, etc), the general cargo market deals with the shipment of consignments which are smaller than a ship or hold size. Broadly speaking, the general cargo market can be divided into three subcategories, namely containers, RoRo and conventional general cargo. This latter subcategory, also known as breakbulk, refers to cargo that is normally packed, bundled or unitized but which is not stowed in containers. Examples of breakbulk packaging techniques include (big)bags, bales, cardboard boxes, cases, casks, crates, drums or barrels which can be stowed on pallets or skids. The term "bundled", for its part, is sometimes used to refer to unpacked goods (usually iron and steel items or sawn timber) which are strapped together. Finally, the term "neobulk cargo" is often used for specific kinds of general cargo that is mostly shipped in larger parcels (Dynamar, 2006).

As such, conventional general cargo encompasses a myriad of different commodities. Dynamar (2006) lists no less than 150 of them, divided into a number of larger categories, for example:

• Project cargo: e.g. power generation plants, steel mills, wood pulp factories, gas power plants, roadbuilding equipment, …
• Powerplant equipment: e.g. gas turbines, power generators, transformers, turbines, heavy machinery, industrial equipment, …
• Iron and steel products: e.g. bars, coils, plates, wires, …
• Forest products: i.e. all kinds of wood and paper products
• Parcels: e.g. malt, fertilizer, sugar, rice, …
• Breakbulk shipments of smaller lots

As observed by Dynamar (2006:8), the first Transatlantic container sailing in 1966 "quickly made it clear that the conventional way of shipping general cargo (or breakbulk) was to become a sunset industry sooner rather than later". Indeed, because of the many logistical advantages it can offer (e.g. fast loading and unloading of vessels, coupled with an easy transfer between vessels and various inland transport modes, enabling door-to-door transport with a low risk of damage to the cargo), the container has been able to swiftly conquer a substantial share of the total general cargo market. This is clearly reflected in the traffic statistics of seaports around the world, which show an increasing container penetration rate (cf. infra). As a result, containerization "has been the death knell for many breakbulk ships and traditional shipping lines" (Dynamar, 2006:14).

However, it has to be admitted that breakbulk shipping has started flourishing again in recent years. In this respect, Dynamar (2006) outlines a number of recent demand drivers behind breakbulk shipping. Firstly, booming economies in the Far East (especially China and India) as well as Brazil, Russia and Southern Africa require huge investments in infrastructure, factories and equipment. Indeed, the unprecedented industrial development of China, following its accession to the WTO in December 2001, has resulted in a massive demand for the construction of power plants and infrastructure projects, including entire seaports. This obviously constitutes a massive driver behind the demand for the shipment of project cargo. The same goes for developing economies which are showing a strong demand for the construction of bridges and roads, hospitals and schools, as well as water and power plants. Emerging East-Asian economies such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam constitute prime examples of this phenomenon.

A third important factor driving the demand for breakbulk shipping is formed by the worldwide gas and oil exploration/exploitation industries and the development of related petrochemical industries (cf. investments in pipes and drilling/refining equipment), the worldwide mining industry (cf. maintenance/renovation of existing fields or construction of new fields) as well as energy-related equipment and the alternative energy segment (e.g. wind power generating equipment). In this respect, the demand for oil and gas equipment and building materials has been particularly strong in countries in the Middle East in recent years, which is obviously not surprising. However, with certain economies aiming to reduce their oil dependency from the Middle East, rapid developments might be taking place in West Africa in the years to come.

Besides the above-mentioned factors, sudden peaks in breakbulk shipments can also be triggered by natural disasters such as the December 2004 Tsunami in the Bay of Bengal or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (August 2005), which both resulted in the requirement to repair or reconstruct a massive amount of infrastructure.

Finally, a major factor affecting the demand for breakbulk shipments is formed by the state of the container market. In periods of low demand, container freight rates might drop to such low levels that it becomes economical to put certain breakbulk commodities (think for example of rice, sugar, forest products, iron or steel items, liquid chemicals, etc.) in bags and put them in containers. In such circumstances, any contribution to the costs of repositioning empty boxes is indeed highly welcomed by shipping lines. As a matter of fact, breakbulk cargoes on the backhaul leg of imbalanced trade routes will always attract the interest of container shipping lines. Indeed, by offering a regular, standardized service at low cost, container shipping lines can attract shippers with backhaul cargo who would normally use tramp shipping (Isemar, 2006). This obviously helps to solve the huge problem originating from the massive trade imbalance on the arterial container trade routes, in particular the Transpacific.

On the other hand, in periods of high demand for container shipments, space on the headhaul trade routes (e.g. Far East-Europe westbound or Far East-US eastbound) is so tight and rates are at such a high level that shipping lines often prefer to return their empty boxes to the loading areas as quickly as possible, where they can immediately be filled with well-paying cargoes for export. As an illustration, Dynamar (2006:18) points out that "in the 2004 peak period, one conventional reefership operator reported an unusual increase of breakbulk cargo offerings for the positioning trips of its vessels".

Although the general cargo market has witnessed an increased container penetration rate in recent years (cf. infra), the volume of breakbulk cargo shipped overseas is still very significant. It is estimated to be in the region of 400-450 million tons per year and could well reach the 500 million ton mark in the not too distant future.

Given the enormous variety of different cargoes involved, it comes as no surprise that there exist several ways in which breakbulk cargoes can be shipped. Broadly speaking, the following ways can be distinguished: conventional liner-type concepts, barge carriers, container ships, forest products carriers, heavy lift and project carriers, conventional reeferships and RoRo ships. These will be briefly discussed in the following paragraphs. For a more extensive discussion, the reader is referred to Dynamar (2006).

Although the industry certainly needs reliable maritime services for the shipment of breakbulk cargoes, the concept of "weekly fixed-day services", which characterizes today’s liner shipping industry³⁴, is something the deepsea trade of conventional cargo has never really been able to achieve. Instead, the following service/schedule options can be distinguished in the case of breakbulk shipping (Dynamar, 2006:31):

• Services of a certain frequency operated with dedicated ships;
• Services offering sailings within a certain period, deploying trip charters;
• Services operated on inducement, but still within a more or less defined trade lane;
• A mixture of two or three of the above options;
• "Parcelling" (also referred to as "shipping opportunities"), i.e. tramping whereby a vessel is chartered (usually on a trip-out basis) once a specific cargo volume is available.

This segment of breakbulk shipping is dominated by Europe-based carriers such as Rickmers Linie, Chipolbrok, Conti Lines, Cargo Levant, Spliethoff Group, CEC or Beluga Chartering and Shipping. Major non-European players include Arab Lines, IRISL and Bonyad Shipping in the Middle East; Indotrans, Eastern Car Liners, Kyowa Shipping, NYK and Thoresen Thai Agencies Public Company in the Far East; Austral Asia Line and Tasman Orient Lines in Australia/New-Zealand; MUR Shipping in Africa; TBS Shipping Services, Seabord Marine, Intermarine and Associated Transport Line in North America; CCNI, CSAV and Aliança in South America. It is beyond the scope of the present Report to discuss the ship fleet and trading profiles of all these operators in detail. For an excellent overview, the reader is referred to Dynamar (2006).

This type of breakbulk shipping basically refers to the situation where a mothership (mostly a propelled floating dock) carries barges loaded with cargo over (long) deepsea distances. When reaching the mothership’s port of call, the barges are "launched" from the mothership for the remaining part of their journey, i.e. from anchorage to final destination or vice versa (Dynamar, 2006:39). The barge carrier concept can broadly be divided in two categories, i.e. "Lighter Aboard Ship" (LASH) and "Barge Container Carrier" (BACO).

One of the main reasons for the development of this type of breakbulk shipping was the need to lessen vessels’ dependency from port infrastructure and avoid port congestion. Other advantages include fast loading/discharging operations, the possibility of door-to-door shipment and the avoidance of risk associated with cargo handling in the port (Dynamar, 2006:42). Other barge carrier types include Heavy Lift vessels and Naval Auxiliary vessels. Yet two other designs, i.e. the "Barge Catamaran" (BACAT) and "Sea Barge" (SEABEE) are currently no longer in use.

The following breakbulk/neobulk cargoes are often transported in barge carriers: forest products (various types); project, oversized and other cargo (e.g. plant equipment); steel products (various types); and bulk commodities. Nowadays there are only three deepsea trades being served by the barge carrier concept, i.e. North Europe-West Africa, North Europe-US Gulf and US East Coast/Gulf-Middle East. Compared to the other ways of shipping breakbulk commodities, the barge carrier option remains a relatively small activity, although substantial investments are required from the operators involved. Examples of such operators include Forest Lines, Seereederei Baco-Liner, Waterman Steamship Corporation and Murmansk Shipping Company.

Some kinds of breakbulk cargoes are carried by cellular container ships, although this is the exception rather than the rule, especially on the headhaul East-West trades and during peak seasons. Breakbulk cargoes carried by container ships usually concern oversized cargo or heavy lift items that do not fit into standard containers. Instead they are secured on special container equipment such as flats and platforms and then lifted onto the ship by a container gantry crane. Another solution includes specially constructed loading platforms on or under deck in combination with platforms or flat racks onto which the cargo is lifted by floating cranes³⁵. Finally, breakbulk cargoes can also be lifted on the hatch cover or in the hold on the tank top - a method which is only possible on container ships which are equipped with special ‘stoppers’ in the cells to that the lowest tier is left free (Dynamar, 2006:44).

The forest products cargo segment encompasses a wide variety of wood and paper products, both in raw-material, semi-finished product and finished-product form. Examples include wood chips, wood panels, pulp, sawn timber, plywood, newsprint, paper reels, paper rolls, paperboard, etc. Forest products are nowadays shipped in specialized vessels such as "Open Hatch Gantry Crane" vessels (OHGCs) or "Totally Enclosed Forest Carriers" (TEFCs) which provide protection against harsh weather conditions.

The forest products shipping industry is characterized by a limited number of players, such as Gearbulk, Star Shipping, Saga Forest Carriers, Westwood Shipping, Rederi AB Transatlantic, Kent Line or Seaboard International Shipping (Dynamar, 2006:46-47). As far as trade lanes are concerned, well-established exporters of forest products are located in the Pacific-Northwest, Eastern Canada and Scandinavia, although competition is heating up from suppliers in South America (Brazil and Chile), Russia and even China. Major importers of forest products include China and Europe.

Finally, it should be noted that forest products are nowadays increasingly being carried in containers, which is clearly reflected in throughput figures for ports such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bristol, Liverpool or Tees (Dynamar, 2006:48). One of the main reasons for the increasing container penetration rate in the forest products sector lies in the fact that, whereas parcel sizes used to be too big to fit into a container in the past, nowadays a first "transformation" of the cargo takes place at the origin location, such that it increasingly loses weight but gains value. This makes it perfectly suitable for supply chains involving regular shipments in containers (Isemar, 2006).

Operators in this market (e.g. BigLift Shipping, Dockwise, Jumbo Shipping, etc.) generally employ purpose-built ships able to carry very heavy and/or very large cargoes such as (power)plants or factories, powerplant equipment or offshore oil and gas facilities. Loading and discharging of the vessels is done through various methods, including lift on-lift off (LoLo) and roll on-roll off (RoRo). As mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, the greatest demand for specialist heavy lift shipping nowadays arises from the wide range of offshore and petrochemical industry projects (for example in Canada, India, Far Eastern Russia and West Africa) as well as mining activities, factories and power plants in countries such as Australia, China and India. It is again beyond the scope of the present Report to discuss ship fleets and trade routes in detail. The reader is referred to Dynamar (2006) for an extensive overview. Finally it is worth mentioning that, because of increased demand for heavy lift ships able to carry rigs and large offshore constructions, many owners of tanker tonnage are considering the conversion of some of their single-hull vessels into heavy lift ships. This will provide a new life for some tankers which would otherwise have to be phased out due to international double-hull requirements. Frontline, having set aside six 1989-1993 built single-hull vessels for conversion at China’s COSCO shipyard group, is a case in point. The vessel conversions consist of the replacement of the existing mid-sized section by a new heavy-lift section (Nightingale, 2007).

Heavy-lift vessels obviously do not operate on fixed routes, but they are attracted to those areas where large investments in the oil and gas industry are made. Nowadays, the main discharge areas are the Middle East, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia and the North Sea while loading areas are situated in the Mediterranean, Far East and Australia (Nightingale, 2007).

Conventional reeferships mainly carry high-value foodstuffs that require refrigeration and/or atmosphere control in order to avoid spoilage. Examples of reefer cargoes include fresh and frozen fruit (e.g. bananas, deciduous and other citrus fruits), vegetables, fish, meat, poultry and dairy products. Reefer shipping is a prime example of a one-way (and for some products seasonal) business, i.e. cargoes are mainly exported from the Southern Hemisphere to industrialized countries in the Northern Hemisphere (Dynamar, 2006:52).

Just as is the case for the forest product industry, the reefer shipping sector is increasingly being put under pressure from container shipping. It is estimated that about 50-60% of all reefer trade is nowadays being carried in containers, and this percentage is expected to grow (quickly) in the years to come³⁶. Compared to conventional reeferships, reefer containers have the additional advantage that they can also be used to transport non-food cargoes which are temperature-sensitive, such as electronic equipment, photographic film, pharmaceuticals or computer chips (Dynamar, 2006:52).

As far as the operators are concerned, major players in the conventional reefership market include independent operators such as Eastwind Transport, Lavinia Group, NYKLauritzenCool, Seatrade Reefer Group and Star Reefers. Besides these, large fruit companies such as Chiquita (Great White Fleet), Del Monte (Horn Linie), Dole (Dole Fresh Fruit International, Dole Ocean Cargo Express) and Fyffes Plc. of Ireland also play a very important role. For a detailed analysis of these operators and the trade routes in which they are active, the reader is referred to Dynamar (2006).

Although mainly aimed at the transport of wheeled cargo, certain RoRo ships are also used to transport breakbulk cargoes on deepsea trade lanes. As far as the ship fleet is concerned, a distinction can be made between four RoRo vessel types (Dynamar, 2006:57): Full RoRo cargo vessels; General cargo ships with (auxiliary) RoRo access; Container vessels with RoRo capacity (so-called ConRos); and Pure Car Carriers (PCCs) and Pure Car and Truck Carriers (PCTCs). As discussed in the previous chapter of this Market Report, RoRo cargo can be either wheeled by itself (i.e. cars, trucks or rolling equipment) or ‘mobilised’ (i.e. placed on a trailer-type unit and then towed on board). As a matter of fact, RoRo provides the ability to carry a very wide range of cargo, such as cars (of all kinds), trucks and trailers, (agricultural) machinery, mining equipment, roadbuilding equipment, project cargo, forest products, iron and steel, coils, cables, oversized cargo, etc. Advantages of RoRo vessels are the fact that there is no need for dockside cargo handling equipment, and the fact that it enables fast turnaround times for certain cargo types. On the other hand, stowage productivity for RoRo ships is rather low, extensive lashing and securing can be needed (in order to avoid sudden movement of cargo). Last but not least, RoRo vessels are rather expensive.

Apart from the ‘classic’ vessel types listed above, other vessels used to transport breakbulk cargo include small Handysize (up to 32,000 dwt) or Handymax (up to 47,000 dwt) bulk ships.

Table 31 provides an overview of the general cargo ship fleet for selected dates. At the first of July 2006 the total fleet reached 98.4m dwt, a 2.4% increase compared to the beginning of 2002. This is significantly lower than the 22.4% increase in the dwt capacity of the world merchant fleet over the period considered. As a result, general cargo ships represented just 10% of the total dwt capacity of the world merchant fleet at mid-2006, whereas this was 12% at the beginning of 2002.

As Table 31 indicates, the dwt capacity of single-deck ships increased significantly since the beginning of 2002, resulting in an increased market share among general cargo ships. At mid-2006 nearly half the dwt capacity of the general cargo ship fleet concerned single-deck ships. On the other hand, the dwt capacity of multi-deck ships decreased significantly over the period considered, obviously resulting in a lower market share. Whereas multi-deck ships accounted for more than 30% of the total general cargo ship fleet at the beginning of 2002, their share decreased to some 26% by mid-2006. The same picture applies to reefer ships and RoRo cargo ships, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent. The biggest fleet growth was registered by Special ships, which enjoyed a 28% increase in dwt capacity, resulting in a 2.5 percentage points increase in market share.

In view of the above, it is hardly surprising that the general cargo ship fleet is of relatively high age compared to the total world fleet (Table 32). At the beginning of 2006 more than 57% of the general cargo ship fleet (measured in dwt terms) was over 20 years old, while for the total world fleet this was just 27.1%. On the other hand, hardly 22.5% of general cargo ships was under 10 years old at that time, while the corresponding percentage for the world fleet was 45.4%. The average age of the general cargo ship fleet at the beginning of 2006 was 17.5 years, some 5 years older than the average for the total merchant fleet. This is a direct result of the fact that shipping lines have been very reluctant to invest in newbuildings during the last decade, a couple of exceptions notwithstanding. In fact, despite some recent newbuilding projects coupled with delayed scrapping of vessels, the general cargo fleet runs the risk of being faced with an acute capacity shortage in the short term. This will obviously translate into higher prices on the charter market. This is not unimportant since, in contrast to container shipping, charter rates make up a large share of the total cost for general cargo ships.

Table 33 provides an overview of conventional general cargo traffic handled in a selection of European seaports. The table was drawn from a large Eurostat database containing about 340 ports, handling a total throughput of 253 million tons of conventional general cargo³⁷ in 2005. However, just like was the case in the previous chapter, we have limited ourselves to those seaports which handled at least 200,000 tons. This resulted in a total ports sample of about 200 individual ports spread across 23 different countries. Their combined conventional general cargo throughput amounted to 238 million tons in 2005, effectively representing 94% of the total throughput of the 340 ports in the Eurostat database.

Although the total throughput of 253 million tons implies that conventional general cargo is by far the smallest (in tonnage terms) of the five traffic categories discussed in this Market Report, its importance for the port sector should not be underestimated. Compared to the handling of, say, crude oil or the major dry bulks, conventional general cargo is much more labour-intensive and generates a substantially higher value-added per ton.

As can be seen from Table 33, the lion’s share of conventional general cargo was handled in ports in Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Finland and France. Between them, these ten countries accounted for 212 million tons of conventional general cargo traffic in 2005. On an individual port basis, Antwerp is by far the market leader with a volume of 17.4 million tons in 2005. This represents about 7% of the combined throughput of the 340 ports in the Eurostat database. Other major conventional general cargo ports, handling more than 5 million tons per year, include Rotterdam, Taranto, Dunkirk and Valencia. Apart from these ports, 24 other ports handled between 2 and 5 million tons of conventional general cargo in 2005. At the other end of the spectrum, more than 200 ports handled less than half a million ton of general cargo traffic.

Generally speaking, the handling of conventional general cargo is confronted with ever-tighter handling space in many seaports in Europe (as more and more square metres are consumed by containers) and, given the strong labour intensity, it is also very sensitive to labourrelated issues.