Fleet Intelligence

Supply & Demand

How much of the world fleet is employed, how much cargo sits idle offshore, how the fleet ages and renews, and the transport work it performs.

Employed tonnage runs from 55.8% in tankers to 70.0% in container ships against a 62.5% fleet-wide read, and the week split them — container ships +16.0 points, gas carriers -8.2. Observed transport work is split: bulkers are up 51% and tankers up 9% and container ships up 7% over the window while other cargo are down 17%.

62.5%

fleet utilization

Fleet Analytics

Fleet snapshot · 27 Aug 2026

Fleet utilization

The share of each segment's observed tonnage that is actually employed rather than idle at anchor or in port, on a deadweight basis.

Bulkers

63%

employed tonnage

51% once discounted for speed

+13.3 pt w/w

15% coverage

Tankers

56%

employed tonnage

38% once discounted for speed

-0.4 pt w/w

11% coverage

Container ships

70%

employed tonnage

43% once discounted for speed

+16.0 pt w/w

22% coverage

Gas carriers

65%

employed tonnage

55% once discounted for speed

-8.2 pt w/w

9% coverage · low confidence

Other cargo

57%

employed tonnage

47% once discounted for speed

+4.2 pt w/w

9% coverage

Week-on-week colour is read from the supply side: a rise in employed tonnage withdraws idle capacity and tightens effective supply, so it is marked favourable and a fall adverse. That is the reverse of the price surfaces, where a rise is what costs the reader more.

Employed tonnage against the speed it is moving at

Each segment placed by the share of its tonnage that is employed and by how fast that tonnage is actually travelling; bubble size is the deadweight behind it. Dashed lines are the medians.

Top-left is tonnage that counts as employed while moving slowly — capacity carried on the employed number that is not delivering the transport work its size implies. Top-right is tonnage that is both employed and moving. Hollow markers are segments seen on too small an observed base to carry a firm read; the speed-adjusted share sits in each tooltip.

Floating storage

“Commodities on the water” — laden vessels sitting idle offshore rather than discharging, the classic tanker and gas signal.

Laden idle offshore

1,439

vessels (snapshot)

Cargo afloat

60.0 Mt

est. deadweight (millions of tonnes)

Confirmed ≥7 days

392

observed dwell

Track window

60 d

position-history depth

Laden-idle-offshore by segment

Instantaneous snapshot population, the count with an observed continuous dwell of 7+ days, and the deadweight standing behind them.

Bulkers and other-cargo ships sit offshore in near-equal numbers — 623 against 566 — but bulkers hold 68% of the tonnage afloat and other cargo 8%.

Ships are counted on the left axis, the deadweight they hold on the right — the two do not track each other, which is the whole point of drawing them together.

Fleet demographics & renewal

How old the fleet is, how much new tonnage is on order relative to it, the age at which ships are scrapped, and the resulting forward net growth.

Fleet in service

34,039

catalogued vessels

Average age

21.0 yr

median 18.0 yr

Orderbook

13.6%

of fleet DWT on order

Net growth (1y est.)

+0.9%

+0.9%deliveries − scrappings

Age distribution

Vessel count per age band, stacked by segment.

Orderbook-to-fleet ratio

On-order deadweight as a share of in-service deadweight. Read it against the catalogued fleet each segment is measured over — a segment we hold thinly reads high here for that reason alone.

Scrapping-age curve

Age at demolition (p25 / median / p75) over the trailing recycling window — when each segment retires tonnage. Segments with too few priced scrappings are omitted.

Ton-mile demand

The demand the fleet serves: cargo tonnes carried multiplied by laden sea-lane distance. It deepens as voyage history accumulates, and a segment appears only once its own record supports a figure.

History-gated

Ton-mile demand by segment

Rebuilt · 14 Aug 2026

Cargo tonnes × laden distance, on this panel's own rebuild date rather than the fleet snapshot above. Year-on-year change is shown only where a matching baseline a year back exists.

Bulkers

23.3 bn

5.0 M t × 4,679 nm avg

Tankers

9.5 bn

2.0 M t × 4,738 nm avg

Container ships

7.6 bn

1.9 M t × 3,940 nm avg

Gas carriers

1.3 bn

274.4 k t × 4,738 nm avg

Transport work performed — observed

Ton-mile demand above is an estimate of the cargo the fleet should be moving. This is what it is actually moving: laden tonne-miles tracked from vessel movements, by segment, day by day. A relative index — read the trend and the segment mix, not the absolute level.

Bulkers

3.86bn

tonne-nm / day

+51% over window

n=1,682 ships

Tankers

0.57bn

tonne-nm / day

+9% over window

n=452 ships

Container ships

1.09bn

tonne-nm / day

+7% over window

n=604 ships

Other cargo

0.78bn

tonne-nm / day

-17% over window

n=3,526 ships

Held out as too thin to index: gas carriers (29 ships). A segment is carried here only once at least 100 ships were seen moving on the day.

Transport work over time

Daily laden tonne-miles performed, billions, by segment.

Method & caveats

Fleet utilization is the employed (not-idle) share of observed tonnage on a deadweight basis. Idle is read straight from vessel speed and navigation status, so the headline is robust; the speed-discounted variant is experimental. Coverage states how much of each segment's registry we saw that day — a week-on-week step of tens of points on single-digit coverage is more likely the observation base moving than the market.
Transport work performed is observed directly: each vessel's distance sailed between position fixes × its deadweight × its load fraction (that day's draught within the ship's own min–max envelope), summed by segment. Because the position trail is down-sampled, chord-summed distance under-counts the true path — so it is a relative index (trend and segment mix are sound; the absolute level is understated). The current, still-accruing day is excluded, and a segment is carried only once at least 100 ships were seen moving on the day.
Floating storage counts laden, idle, offshore vessels. Confirmed multi-day dwell needs position history, so the long-dwell counts are a floor until that history deepens — disclosed on each segment. Ship counts and the tonnage behind them are separate readings and are drawn separately.
Demographics counts and ages are real over the catalogued fleet; orderbook and scrap-age reflect the platform's newbuild-order and demolition records. The orderbook-to-fleet ratio is a ratio to the catalogued fleet, so it runs high where our catalogue of a segment is thinner than the orders we hold against it. Net growth is a forward estimate (deliveries are scheduled, not certain).
Ton-mile demand is history-gated and rebuilt on its own cadence, so it carries its own date rather than the fleet snapshot date — the two panels can be days apart. Year-on-year change needs a matching baseline a year back; no segment carries one yet, and nothing is fabricated in the meantime.
Segments are split into gas, tanker, container, bulker and other.

Supply & Demand

How much of the world fleet is employed, how much cargo sits idle offshore, how the fleet ages and renews, and the transport work it performs.