Classification society ClassNK has announced its registration totals for 2014, which show that for the fourth straight year it registered over 20million in new tonnage.
Over the course of the year, 833 new vessels with a combined total of 21,466,272 gt joined its register and the growth comes in spite of a global downturn in the market which has seen newbuilding deliveries fall by an estimated 15% according to Clarkson Research Services.
Led by continued strength in the newbuilding markets, ClassNK registered a total of 548 newbuildings with a combined total of over 16 milliongt, or more than 25% of all newly built tonnage in 2014 based on Clarkson’s figures.
Growth was also driven by transfers from other societies which reached a record 285 vessels in 2014, including ClassNK’s first US-flagged and German-flagged vessels. These successes follow ClassNK’s establishment of new Survey Operations Headquarters in New York and Hamburg to complement its existing survey headquarters in Tokyo and better serve clients in Europe and North America. Continuing trends from previous years, European ship owners, led by German and Greek owners, accounted for roughly half of all transfers to the NK register in 2014.
ClassNK Chairman and President Noboru Ueda (pictured) spoke about the recent success: “At ClassNK, we strive to deliver the highest level of service as the only classification society offering 24/7 assistance 365 days a year and ClassNK’s growing register reflects our ability to meet the changing needs of the industry. In addition to the establishment of our Survey Operations Headquarters in Hamburg and New York last year, the acquisition of software leaders NAPA and Helm Operations has enabled us to widen the scope of our activities throughout Europe and North America to better serve the global maritime industry.”
At the end of December 2014, ClassNK had a total of 8,872 vessels on its register with a combined total of 232,871,435 gt. Of the 833 vessels added, 548 were newbuildings totaling 16,158,319 gt and 285 vessels were existing vessels with a total of 5,307,953 gt.
