China’s Ministry of Transport has said that large ships exceeding approved capacities will no longer be allowed to dock at any of its ports. Previously, requests to do so were considered on a case-by-case basis. The move has been deliberately taken to exclude Brazilian company CVRD’s latest generation of mega- bulk carriers from being deployed on routes to China.
The surprise announcement was doubtless influenced by complaints by the China Shipowners Association, which was outraged by the arrival of one of these 388,000dwt vessels at the port of Dalian, where it unloaded imported Brazilian iron ore. Currently, the maximum permissible vessel size allowed in Chinese ports is no more than 300,000 tonnes. The Chinese fear that Vale’s very large ore carriers will effectively monopolize the movement of coal and iron ore at the expense of Chinese shipping lines.
Faced with this ban,Vale will serve China in future via a more expensive transshipment hub that it has established in the Philippines.