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Qatar Shipping Q3 2010 - New Market Report published
The merger of two of Qatar’s top shipping companies has been completed, and they are now changing gear to cope with the change from recession to impending boom. Qatar Navigation has acquired Qatar Shipping (QShips); both
companies are ultimately government-owned and the merger was Doha’s
response to the 2009 recession. In practice however, the new merged
company is positioned to play offensively, rather than defensively, as
rising oil and gas revenues put Qatar on an accelerated growth path in
2010. The merged company has reported a first-quarter profit of
QAR554.59mn (US$152.46mn) in Q110. More good results can now be expected
as oil, LPG and LNG exports, and consequently demand for tankers, begin
to surge forward. In a press statement Qatar Navigation asserted that
the merger had established ‘clear leadership in the Qatari market and
the potential to become a major regional player with a firm basis to
establish and grow its presence in international markets’.
The macroeconomic environment in which Qatar’s shipping and ports sector
operates is changing rapidly. After the bursting of banking and real
estate bubbles last year, with the associated worries, 2010 presents
itself as a particularly sharp V-shaped recovery. With GDP surging
ahead, the issue now is how to deal with the problems of growth. We
expect the economy to grow by a massive 15.4% this year, followed by
double-digit growth again in 2011 (GDP will rise by 10.4%). Gas
production, most of which needs to be exported by sea on gas tankers, is
forecast to increase at an average annual rate of 11.4% over the next
five years.
Cargo volumes handled in Qatar’s Port of Doha and in its successor,
(currently under construction) the New Port of Doha, are set to grow
very strongly. As the Qatari authorities do not publish detailed cargo
statistics, and have not said much about the phasing of the move to the
New Port of Doha, we are making the broad prediction that volumes over
the next five years will grow at annual average rate above GDP (expected
to be 8.3%) and close to foreign trade (expected to be 12.1%). By 2014
we expect the number of containers handled at the Port of Doha to be up
to 427,811 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), while at the New Port they
will have reached 106,953TEUs.
With a relatively small population and a very large and growing natural
gas industry, Qatar is set to see very rapid trade growth. LNG exports
will lead the way and deliver double-digit export expansion. In fact,
this year alone we see exports rising by over 50% to US$73.6bn, while
imports grow by 10% to US$27.7bn, generating a massive surplus. Large
positive trade balances will be a marked feature of the next few years.
With such strong growth projections the risks to our ports and shipping
forecast must lie on the downside, although in our view they are of no
more than moderate probability. We highlight two risks. The first is the
possibility of lower than expected oil and gas price increases, which
would have the effect of cooling the growth in trade and volumes (note,
however, that this depends on elasticities of demand, and arguably the
developed economies’ demand for LNG is price-inelastic). The second, and
perhaps more probable, risk is that the proposed transition from the
Port of Doha to the New Port of Doha is delayed or otherwise runs less
smoothly than planned. This could quite significantly reduce cargo
volumes because of the capacity problems at the existing port.
Source: Companiesandmarkets.com and OfficialWire
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