ABSTRACT
The introduction and subsequent dominance of the shipping container from the late 1950s facilitated the massive expansion of worldwide trade and the rise of globalisation. Break bulk shipping has also provided operators of an ever-increasing number of distant offshore Oil and Gas fields with the means of extracting large quantities of oil to satisfy the insatiable demands of the global economy, by transporting a wide range of equipment and materials to these offshore projects. In shipping, break bulk cargo or general cargo is a term that covers a great variety of goods that fit inside a standardised metal container, such as is carried by conventional container vessel. The term break bulk derives from the phrase breaking bulk – the extraction of a portion of the cargo of a ship or the beginning of the unloading process from the ship’s holds. Break bulk was the most common form of cargo for most of the history of shipping.
