Ship Segments
Where each asset class sits between the tonnage arriving and the tonnage leaving — then one market overview per class.
The cycle, class by class
One row per class: the tonnage arriving, the tonnage already ageing out, and what hulls are fetching.
Set the order book against the hulls already past 25 years and tankers lead on renewal: 895 on order against 955 already past 25, or 0.94 for each. Bulk carriers stand at 0.34 (523 against 1,538) and gas carriers stand at 0.27 (37 against 135).
| Segment | On order vs fleet | Aged 25+ | Renewal cover | Scrapped 1y | Net growth | Secondhand | Deals · quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BULKER 12,217 ships · 960m dwt · avg 15.5 yrs | 4.3% | 1,538 13% of hulls | 0.34 | +0.70% | +1.2% | $256 per dwt | 158 $3,484m |
TANKER 2,815 ships · 173m dwt · avg 22.9 yrs | 31.8% | 955 34% of hulls | 0.94 | +2.81% | +11.6% | $383 per dwt | 72 $4,223m |
CONTAINER 2,974 ships · 115m dwt · avg 19.1 yrs | 0.3% | 763 26% of hulls | — thin book | +0.30% | -2.1% | $837 per dwt · thin | 17 $368m |
GAS 290 ships · 12m dwt · avg 22.4 yrs | 12.8% | 135 47% of hulls | 0.27 | +5.86% | -3.9% | $1,159 per dwt · thin | 2 $89m |
Age profile · share of hulls
The two orderings disagree. Gas carriers carry the heavier incoming book — 12.8% of the fleet against 4.3% — yet the thinner cover, because 47% of their hulls are already past 25 years against 13% of bulk carriers.
Tonnage on order is measured against the existing fleet, so a high figure means capacity is arriving whatever demand does. Renewal cover divides the hulls on order by the hulls already past 25 years. Both are counts of tracked hulls rather than deadweight, so a book of smaller ships covers less than the ratio suggests, and a hull past 25 is under no obligation to leave — the classes' own median recycling ages run 23 to 29 years. Container Ships (8 on order) carries a book too thin to rank, so it is left out of the cover comparison and shown as “—”. Their age profile is a measured count and stays on the chart. Secondhand value is the median of the last twelve months of reported sales — the same figure each segment card below carries — shown per deadweight tonne because each segment's price index is re-based to its own history and cannot be compared across classes. Deal counts are the latest completed quarter and a thin quarter is marked. This is a reading of position, not a recommendation to buy or sell: the timing call needs a view on demand that these figures do not carry.
Bulk Carriers
The dry-bulk fleet — Capesize, Panamax, Supramax and Handysize tonnage hauling iron ore, coal and grain.
Tankers
The wet fleet — VLCC, Suezmax, Aframax and product carriers moving crude oil and refined products.
Container Ships
The box fleet — from feeders to ULCVs carrying the world’s manufactured goods in TEU.
Gas Carriers
The gas fleet — LNG and LPG carriers serving the fastest-growing energy trades.
Each card is a pure rollup over the same data behind our deep analytics pages — it fetches no new feed and so can never drift from them. Freight indices are shown under our own generic names; segments use the one shared classifier. Figures flagged as low-confidence on a segment page reflect thin underlying samples. Snapshot computed 2026-08-27.