Drewry

About Drewry

Drewry is a London-based maritime and shipping research and consultancy firm founded in 1970, and one of the most widely used and respected sources of impartial market insight, industry analysis and advice in world shipping. From its origins as H.P. Drewry (Shipping Consultants) Limited, it has grown into a 21st-century maritime consultancy employing more than 100 professionals across offices in London, Delhi, Singapore and Shanghai, publishing market-leading research on every key maritime sector and advising shipping companies, financial institutions, retailers and manufacturers. It publishes from drewry.co.uk.

Founding in 1970

Drewry's origins lie in 1970s London, when it was established as H.P. Drewry (Shipping Consultants) Limited, operating from Palladium House, 1-4 Argyll Street. The firm's early work set the template for its future: rigorous, vessel-by-vessel analysis of shipping markets. Study No. 49, “The Role of Independent Tanker Owners”, published in January 1977, examined 25 leading owners in detail — at mid-1976 the companies analysed together owned 105 million deadweight tonnes of tanker and combined carrier tonnage, equivalent to 30 per cent of the world tanker fleet — analysing fleet size and age structure, chartered-in tonnage, flagging and customer relations.

The study-based model — deep, quantitative, subscription research sold to industry participants — became Drewry's signature. In an industry of volatile freight rates and cyclical asset values, independent analysis of supply, demand and costs found a ready market among owners, charterers, bankers and investors.

More than 50 years of maritime markets

Drewry has now spent more than 50 years continuously charting and assessing the world's maritime markets, and has been recording container shipping data since 1979. That long data history gives its analysis unusual authority: when the firm forecasts that global container port volume will fall, it can place the forecast against the only two previous comparable drops in its dataset — the 8.4 per cent fall during the 2009 financial crisis and the 0.9 per cent fall in 2020 when the pandemic was declared.

The firm's longevity has made it the primary source of market insight, analysis and advice trusted by a global audience of maritime and shipping industry stakeholders, in its own description — a claim supported by the ubiquity of its forecasts in the trade and financial press.

The four business units

Drewry serves its clients through four business units. Drewry Maritime Research publishes market-leading research on every key maritime sector, from containers and dry bulk to tankers, gas shipping and ports. Drewry Maritime Advisors supports the needs of shipping companies and financial institutions with consulting and advisory work. Drewry Supply Chain Advisors provides seafreight procurement support to retailers and manufacturers — the cargo owners who buy ocean freight. And Drewry Maritime Financial Research delivers an investment research service on listed companies operating in the industry.

The four-unit structure reflects the breadth of the firm's client base: it advises the shipowners who supply shipping capacity, the financial institutions that fund them, the shippers who buy their services, and the investors who own their shares.

Container market intelligence

Container shipping is the most visible of Drewry's research franchises, and its container market forecasts are among the most quoted in world shipping. The firm's analysts track the interplay of vessel supply, port throughput, freight rates and carrier profitability that determines the economics of the box trade.

The research extends to the structural questions shaping the industry: the cascading of larger ships into secondary trade lanes, the investment requirements of the world's container terminals — Drewry has estimated global terminal turnover and profitability — and the impact of geopolitics and trade policy on volumes. Its assessment of US tariff policy in 2025, forecasting a 1 per cent fall in global container port volume, illustrated how the firm's data history allows it to quantify the impact of policy shocks.

Ship operating costs and sector research

Drewry's sector research covers the full range of shipping markets: containers, dry bulk, tankers, LPG and LNG, ports and terminals, and offshore. Its Ship Operating Costs Annual Review and Forecast assesses operating costs across dozens of ship types and sizes — the 2016/17 edition covered 44 vessel categories, finding that owners had trimmed costs for a second successive year, with an average decline of 4.4 per cent, driven by weak freight rates, declining asset values and eroded profitability.

The research looks forward as well as back: the firm forecast modest increases in manning costs from wage agreements and officer shortages, offset by excess capacity in marine insurance, and rising repair and maintenance spending even on a relatively young fleet. Such granular cost analysis is the foundation of investment and chartering decisions across the industry.

Advisory and consulting

Beyond published research, Drewry's Maritime Advisors unit works directly with shipping companies and financial institutions on strategy, market entry, investment appraisal and restructuring. The advisory business draws on the same analytical base as the research — sector knowledge, rich market insight and commercial awareness — applied to clients' specific decisions.

The Supply Chain Advisors unit extends the franchise to the buy side, supporting retailers and manufacturers in procuring ocean freight: benchmarking rates, designing tender strategies and managing carrier relationships. In an era of supply-chain disruption, the procurement advisory business has grown in importance alongside the traditional shipowner clientele.

A global network

Drewry employs more than 100 professionals — described in its corporate materials as more than 90 full-time staff and associates — across an international network of offices in London, Delhi, Singapore and Shanghai. The headquarters at 15-17 Christopher Street, London EC2A 2BS, sits in the City fringe, close to the brokers, lawyers and financiers of the London maritime cluster.

The Asian offices reflect the eastward shift of the shipping industry's centre of gravity: Singapore and Shanghai are among the world's great maritime centres, and Delhi serves the fast-growing Indian market. The network gives Drewry's research a genuinely global perspective, with analysts close to the markets they cover.

Drewry today

Today Drewry describes itself as a leading international provider of research and consulting services to the maritime and shipping industry, offering a unique combination of sector knowledge, rich market insight and commercial awareness to deliver the performance, profitability and competitive advantage its clients seek.

From a 1970s London consultancy selling tanker studies for $75 a copy to a global research and advisory business spanning four units and four countries, Drewry's half-century charts the professionalisation of shipping intelligence: the transformation of maritime market knowledge from brokers' lore into a rigorous, data-driven discipline — one in which Drewry remains the most widely used and respected name.

Forecasts in the headlines

Drewry's forecasts routinely make industry headlines, a measure of the authority its long data histories command. In 2025 the maritime consultancy forecast that global container port volume would fall 1 per cent as a direct result of US trade policies — including blanket tariffs of 10 per cent on goods from most countries and far higher rates on Chinese products — a projection with the weight of history behind it: it would be only the third drop in global container shipping demand since Drewry began recording the data in 1979, after the 8.4 per cent collapse of 2009 and the 0.9 per cent dip of 2020.

The forecast illustrated the firm's role as the industry's quantitative conscience: in a global ocean shipping industry handling 80 per cent of world trade, Drewry's numbers give carriers, ports, shippers and investors a common factual basis for planning. The firm publishes its thinking openly through white papers available on its website, including studies on how future online marketplaces might bring mutual benefit to carriers and shippers — research aimed at optimising the customer's ocean freight experience.