EMEA News
2013 Sees Slight Decline in Ship Operating Costs
UK accountants Moore Stephens has found that the average operating costs for shipping companies continued to fall in 2013, if only slightly, beating last year's expectations of a rise, Tanker Operator reports.
Average operating costs for shippers reduced by 0.3 percent overall in 2013 compared with 1.8 percent in 2012 according to Moore Stephens's Opcost 2014 report.
"This is the second successive year-on-year reduction in operating costs," said Richard Greiner, Partner at Moore Stephens.
"Crew costs were the only category of expenditure to show an increase over the 12-month period covered by the survey," he added.
According to Greiner, this is a small rise for an industry which has seen 20 percent year-on-year rises in the past and reflects fewer operators exiting the industry as well as the need to invest in good staff.
But tankers as a category showed a 1.1 percent increase in average operating costs, according to Tanker Operator, bucking the trend.
Only the larger tankers showed reductions in operating costs in 2013, it said.
The findings in Opcost 2014 come in contrast to Moore Stephens's previous prediction of a 3 percent rise in operating costs for shippers in 2013.
