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09/10/2021

Different Shipping Routes

Dry bulk cargo trade routes

Coal, the black lump that powered steam engines during the industrial revolution, is still in use today to power over 40% of world electricity. China, as of 2017 is the biggest importer of coal, although China reins as the world’s biggest coal production. 

Australia, on the other hand, is only the 4th largest coal producer, but with a lower population count, there is generally a surplus of coal which Asia is happy to devour, especially China.

 

 In terms of Coal transportation, it is largely to-and-fro Australia and Indonesia to China, Japan, India, and South Korea.

Once again, the largest country in the world, Russia’s 17.1 million square kilometers also has the most countries it borders with. It capitalizes on the large land area by exporting both to European Countries and Asia Region.

This leaves us with the 4th largest coal exporting nation in the world, the United States of America, it’s closer proximity to E.U. makes exporting coal to Europe a viable route.

IRON ORE

The next commodity that we are looking into is the transportation of iron ore. Heated with coal coke, coincidentally also one of the world’s most traded cargo, the iron ore will morph into steel alloys, which is the structural material for building skyscrapers, cars, and appliances.

The top 3 producers of iron ore by cargo value in 2020 are Australia ($48.2 Billion), Brazil ($20.1 Billion) and South Africa ($4.02 Billion).

Containerized Shipping Trade Routes

We have looked at liquid bulk cargo and dry bulk cargo shipping in general. Now, we can look into containerized cargo shipping and its major shipping route. The World Customs Organization (WCO) has a very clever way of sorting shipping cargos into neat categories of headings and subheadings. Bulk Shipping usually ships raw, unprocessed materials and containerized goods ship semi-processed or finished goods. The containerized shipping routes dominates the sea transportation industry, granted we are looking at cargo value instead of total cargo tonnage.
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