As the Union of Greek Shipowners reports, Greece remains the top ship-owning nation in the world, as Greek shipowners with 5,514 ships currently control approximately 21% of the global fleet, in terms of capacity.
Fleet size
The total capacity of the Greek-owned fleet has increased by 45.8% compared to 2014, while even during the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., since 2019, capacity rose by 7.4%. The Greek-owned merchant fleet transports cargoes between third countries with more than 98% of its fleet capacity, thus being the world’s largest cross trader, Union of Greek Shipowners notes.
Greek shipowners control:
- 31.78% of the world oil tanker fleet
- 25.01% of the world bulk carriers
- 22.35% of the world Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carriers • 15.60% of the world chemical & product tankers
- 13.85% of the world Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) carriers
- 9.33% of the world containerships
The Union reports that more than one quarter (27.6%) of the Greek-owned tonnage (in terms of dwt) falls within the scope of the global standard Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI).
The average age of the Greek-owned fleet (9.99 years), is lower than the global average (10.28 years), while newbuilding orders from Greek shipowners amount to 173 ships (from 104 ships the year before), corresponding to 17.3 million dwt. More than one third of the oil tankers and almost one out of six LNG carriers currently being built in the world will be delivered to Greek shipowners, the Union highlights.
Greek registry
Ranking 8th in terms of dwt, Greece is one of the main shipping registries in the world and one of the top ones from traditional maritime nations. With 647 ships (above 1,000 gt) registered with the Greek flag amounting to 61.8 million dwt.
Greece remains on the IMO’s List of confirmed Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) Parties and on the White Lists of the Paris and the Tokyo Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Greece is also included in the Flag Administrations List of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) QUALSHIP 21 Program. Furthermore, it is placed among the best performing Flag States with positive indicators across all categories (e.g. ratification of IMO Conventions, Port State Control procedures etc.) in the Flag State Performance Table published by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).
Source: Safety4sea
