European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference

10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

A building cost estimation method for inland ships

Robert G. HEKKENBERG
Delft University of Technology,Department of Ship Design, Production and Operation
Mekelweg 2, 2628CD, Delft, the Netherlands

ABSTRACT
There is very little publicly available data about the building cost of inland ships, especially for ships that
have dimensions that differ significantly from those of common ships. Also, no methods to determine the
building cost of inland ships are described in literature. In this paper, a method to estimate the building cost
of inland ships is presented. Furthermore, the method is used to develop rules of thumb for the cost of
inland ships as a function of their length, beam and draught. All material that is presented in this paper is
based on or taken from Hekkenberg [2013].

Key words: inland ships, cost estimation

1. INTRODUCTION
There have been many studies into the economics of inland shipping and the
competitiveness of inland shipping compared to road and rail transport. In virtually all
studies in which the cost of transport by inland ship plays an important role, only data on
ships of common types and sizes are provided. In the few exceptions where the use of
non-standard ships is explored, no methods for the estimation of the building cost are
provided [Hekkenberg 2013, p 30]. Since building cost is an important element in the
total cost of transport by inland ship, this absence of suitable estimation methods makes it
hard or impossible to explore the economic performance of non-standard inland ships.
This in turn can be considered as an impediment to innovation in the sector. To fill this
gap, in this paper a method to estimate the building cost of an inland ship on the basis of
its technical specifications is presented as well as several of rules of thumb, derived from
this method, that allow estimation of building cost as a function of only length, beam and
draught. All material that is presented in this paper is based on or taken from Hekkenberg
[2013].

2. LITERATURE SURVEY
From literature, only a partial picture of the relationship between the technical properties
of an inland ship and its building cost can be obtained. Several sources list the
commercial prices for a number of standard ship types, while others provide estimates for
various components of the ship as a function of one or more technical properties.

De Vries [Vries, 2000, p. 148], in a very rough estimate, arrives at a cost of

approximately 3.9 million euro for a 110 x 11.45 m ship and 2.2 million euro for a 63 x 7
m ship (2011 values), while research institute VBD [2004], currently known as DST,
provides cost data for a number of conventional ship types, as shown in table 1. Indexing
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

the values by VBD [2004] to 2011 values by means of the OECD producers’ price index
for the EU 27 [OECD, 2012] leads to the following values for the cost of these ships:

Table 1 Building cost of various vessel types. Source: adapted from VBD [2004]
type Gustav Johann GMS Elbeleichter Elbeleichter pusher
Koenigs Welker (small) (large)
L 80 85 110 32.5 65 20 m
B 8.2 9.5 11.4 8.2 8.2 8 m
T 2.5 2.7 3.5 2.32 2.32 1.4 m
Pinst 750 900 1100 0 0 800 kW
Hull cost 1.30 1.36 2.00 0.17 0.40 0.69 M€
Propulsion cost 0.58 0.62 0.92 0.00 0.00 0.62 M€
Other equipment 0.24 0.25 0.36 0.00 0.00 0.27 M€
cost
Elec., 0.24 0.25 0.36 0.02 0.02 0.27 M€
navigation,
accomm. cost
Total cost 2.36 2.48 3.63 0.20 0.42 1.86 M€
(2011 values)

As a further rough but illustrative indication of building cost, Schuttevaer, [2011] quoted
“… In 2008 prices for a new ship were much higher than today. Then a 110 m ship cost
4.5 million Euro, now only 3.3 million Euro”. This provides further confirmation of the
values by VBD, but also reveals large fluctuations in commercial prices due to changes in
market situation. These fluctuations are also apparent from the different values mentioned
by De Vries [2000] and VBD [2004]. In the same article, Schuttevaer [2011] also quotes
“…a small hull costs between 1 and 1.5 million Euro.” (2011 values). This is comparable
with the hull cost as stated by VBD [2004] for the Johann Welker and Gustav Koenigs
type ships.

EICB [2011] also quotes a number of prices for various inland ships, as shown in table 2:

Table 2 Building price for various ship types. Source: adapted from EICB [2011]
Ship type Newbuild price (2011 values)
Peniche (350-400 T, 40 x 5 m) €1.2 million
Kempenaar (650 T 55 x 6.6 m) €1.6 million
Europa ship (1200-1500 T, 86 x 9.5 m) €2.5 million
Large ship (3000 T, 110 x 11.45 m) €3.5 million

When the cost of a ship is broken down into smaller pieces than those presented above, it
can be subdivided into the cost of all activities that are performed by the yard and the cost
of all activities performed by subcontractors. The yard typically manages the project,
designs and engineers the ship and erects the hull, while subcontractors supply and install
all equipment. The yard-related cost can be estimated by combining the estimates of
Kerlen [1981] and Coenen 2008, p 15]. Kerlen [1981] provides a building cost estimate
for the hull as a function of LBD, steel price and labour cost, while Coenen [2008]
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

provides an estimate of the cost of engineering, including procurement and ship

management.

For some of the systems that are supplied and installed by subcontractors, cost data are
available from various sources, while for several other systems, no reference data is
available from literature. For the drive train, Hunt and Butman [1995, 9-2] arrive at a cost
estimate as a function of installed power expressed as cost = c x Pinstn, while Aalbers
[unknown year, 200X] arrives at a similar estimate for the relationship between power
and cost of the drive train. However, due to the fact that Aalbers, Hunt and Butman
analyse seagoing ships with medium and slow speed engines, running on marine diesel
oil and heavy fuel oil, the coefficient of cost that is used is not believed to be
representative for high speed inland ship engines that run on gasoil. The power of 0.79-
0.82 that Aalbers, Hunt and Butman use, however, is believed to provide an acceptable
indication for scale effects.

Stapersma, [2001] provides a more detailed approximation of specific unit purchase cost
(supc) of an engine based on the detailed characteristics of the engine. For propellers,
shafting and attached hydraulics (if any), lecture material from Delft University of
technology [Delft University of Technology, 2009] quotes values for fixed and variable
pitch propellers operating at various speeds.

Schneekluth and Bertram [1998, p. 95] provide a trend for the cost of hatch covers: They
state that hatch cover price depends linearly on length and to the power 1.6 on width.

Outfitting, which is generally recognized as one of the most difficult and design-specific
cost elements to calculate, is determined as a function of outfitting weight to the 2/3
power both by Watson [1998, p. 478] and Hunt & Butman [1995].

From this, it can be concluded that there are several handholds to determine the cost of
inland ships, but also that up-to-date cost data are very scarce due to the age of several
literature sources. Furthermore, import cost elements such as the cost of the
accommodation, wheelhouse, navigation equipment, electrical installation, rudders, bow
thrusters, cranes and piping of tankers are still lacking. Therefore, the data from literature
will need to be supplemented with recent cost data from actual ships before a proper
building cost model for inland ships can be assembled. The way in which this is done is
presented in the following section.

3. BUILDING COST ESTIMATION METHOD

For the cost estimation method, the cost of the ship is broken down into 12 categories:

1. General object cost

2. Hull
3. Propulsion & manoeuvring
4. Electrical system
5. Bilge & ballast systems
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

6. Cargo pumps & piping for tankers

7. Accommodation
8. Mooring gear
9. Hatch covers
10. Outfitting
11. Miscellaneous equipment
12. margin

Below, it is explained how the costs for each category are determined, followed by a final
overview of the formulas that are used in the model. All costs are expressed in 2011
values; they are derived on the basis of scaling rules from literature and reference cost
data from quotations from 2011.

General object cost

General object costs include acquisition, overhead and engineering. Coenen [2008, p. 15]
states that in shipbuilding the cost of engineering, including procurement and ship
management equals roughly 20-35% of a shipyard’s labour hours. What is included in the
yard’s labour varies from yard to yard, as is also discussed by amongst others Stopford
[2009, p. 646], but in the case of the yard at which Coenen did her PhD work, the yard’s
labour costs typically consist of the building of the steel hull, including small steelwork
& installation of the main piping and project management. Other tasks, such as painting,
installation of the major mechanical and electrical systems and the propulsion units are
subcontracted.

Here, we need to take into account that the yard Coenen performed her research at builds
complex one-off vessels (i.e. dredgers), while inland ships are vastly simpler and highly
standardized. At the same time, it is important to note that the engineers and project
managers that are paid for through the general object costs are better paid than yard
workers that build the vessel’s steel structure. As a result, a value of 15% of the labour
cost for the building of the ship’s hull is estimated as typical cost of cost category
‘general object costs’.

Hull
The cost of the ship’s hull can be estimated in various ways. Commonly accepted values1
are in the range of 2.5 to 3 €/kg of steel weight. This claim can further be substantiated by
research by Kerlen [1981, p 104]. Kerlen quotes the required number of man-hours per
ton of steel (for general cargo, bulk and tank vessels (between 20.000 m3 and 100.000 m3
LBD) as:

 0 .1 1 5
 LBD  0 .8 6 6
k fr
 4 5 .3 6     x II , (1)
 1000  3
CB
where xII represents a compensation for yard-specific variations, which for the purpose of
this method is left out of the equation.
1
Obtained through private conversations with shipyards and owners
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

When this equation is used, costs per ton of steel are in the same range as the
abovementioned 2.5 to 3 €/kg.

The second main aspect of the cost of the hull, being the cost of the purchased materials,
is directly related to the amount of steel that is used to build the hull structure. Estimates
for the steel weight of inland ships may be found in Hekkenberg [2013]. Multiplying this
weight with the steel price per ton will result in an acceptable first estimate of the
material cost of the hull.

Tuning the above equation with a man-hour cost of 45 €/h, and a steel price of 950 €/ton
results in costs for the hull of a typical inland ship that closely match the quoted cost of
2.5 to 3 €/kg. It should be noted that the mentioned man-hour costs not only include the
direct labour cost, but also includes indirect cost.

Propulsion & manoeuvring

For the determination of the cost of the propulsion system several rules of thumb exist.
Aalbers [unknown year, 200X] arrives at cost of the entire drive train of $4700*Pprop0.79,
with P, the installed power in kW, while Hunt and Butman [1995, 9-2] use K3 * Pprop0.82.
Due to the fact that Aalbers, Hunt and Butman look at seagoing ships with medium and
slow speed engines, running on MDO and HFO, the coefficient of 4700 is not believed to
be representative for high speed inland ship engines that run on gasoil. The power of
0.79-0.82, however, is believed to provide an acceptable indication for scale effects.

In absolute cost for the main engine, Aalbers quotes a value of $200 to $300 per kW
(values from unknown year). Based on quotations for modern inland ship engines of 330
to 500 kW of rated power, a price of roughly 220 €/kW (2011 values) is found. However,
there is a large spread in prices. Stapersma [2001] arrives at a more physically correct
approximation of specific unit purchase cost (supc) of an engine (2001 values) as follows.

0 .7
upc  c m 1 . 25 10 
sup c   270      (2)
 
Pb  9 . 5  S
n 
Where:
upc = unit purchase cost (k€)
Pb = brake engine power (kW)
Cm = piston speed (m/s)
λs = stroke/bore ratio

Although the approach by Stapersma provides the most well-founded comparison

between engines with different specifications, it requires quite detailed knowledge about
the engine. Within this cost estimation method, the more simple approximation of 220
€/kW is used.

For propellers, shafting and attached hydraulics (if any), lecture material from Delft
University of technology [2009] quotes 55 €/kW for a fixed pitch propeller at 100 rpm
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

and 65 €/kW for a fixed pitch propeller at 250 rpm. For the gear box, values are not
quoted in terms of €/kW, but as 15-25 €/kg of gearbox weight. When a weight 2 kg/kW is
assumed as a standard gearbox weight [Hekkenberg, 2013, p 222], this brings cost of the
gearbox to roughly 40 €/kW.

As a result of the above, the cost of a complete drive train is estimated at around 325
Euro per kW. There are, however, scale effects in drive train cost. Using a cost of 330
€/kW for a drive train with a 750 kW engine and a power of 0.82 to relate cost to engine
power, this results in a cost of C = N*1086 P0.82,with N as the number of propellers and
P as the installed power per propeller. For bow thrusters and their engine, the same
formula is used. Per propeller, € 50.000 is added for rudders and steering machines, based
on an actual quotation.

Electrical system
The cost of electrical system is hard to estimate, especially since it interacts with virtually
all other systems and is, therefore, very ship-specific. Based on a quotation for a number
of actual ships, generator sets are cost is estimated at 175 €/kW, while the cost of the total
electrical system (including gensets) is estimated at 500 €/kVA.

Bilge and ballast systems

Bilge & ballast systems are related to vessel length and are estimated to cost € 450 per
meter of ship length, based on several quotations.

Cargo pumps and piping (tank ships only)

In a similar approach, a value of 145 €/m3 of LBD is used for cargo pumps and pipes for
tank ships, although it should be noted that this is a rudimentary approximation, since the
system is significantly influenced by the number of different parcels and the size of the
tanks.

Accommodation
For the accommodation, an estimated price of €600 per square meter of floor space is
used, based on several quotations.

Mooring gear
The cost of mooring gear is estimated at 13 €/m3 of LBT, based on a quotation and the
reasoning that L, B and T of the vessel all affect the forces on the anchors.

Hatch covers
Schneekluth and Bertram [1998, p 95] provide a trend for hatch covers: They state that
hatch cover price depends linearly on length and to the power 1.6 on width. As a result
the cost of hatch covers is estimated at € 24 * Lhold * Bhold^1.6 of the vessel, again based
on the same quotations that were used above.
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Outfitting
Outfitting cost, being generally recognized as one of the most difficult and design-
specific factors to calculate, is determined as a function of outfitting weight to the 2/3
power both by Watson [1998, p 478] and Hunt & Butman [1995]. Again based on a
reference vessel, the cost of outfitting is estimated at € 40000 * W2/3, with W, expressed
in tons, subdivided in weight in the fore and aft part of the ship. The coefficient of 40000
is again arrived at by analysis of a quotation for a ship.

Miscellaneous equipment
Cost for miscellaneous non-ship size related equipment (wheelhouse, navigation masts
etc.) may vary from case to case but is hardly dependent on ship size, apart from anchor
winches. For the analysis made here, these items are grouped together with class cost,
cost of required software etcetera and estimated at € 100.000,- In case the wheelhouse is
raisable, another € 65.000 is added to this, although commercial prices show that this is
strongly dependent on the raising height.

Risk margin
Since the price for which a ship owner buys a ship will include a risk margin for the yard,
a 5% margin for the yard is included in the cost of the ship.

All cost elements discussed above are summarized in table 3 below.

Table 3 Overview of the elements of the building cost estimation method

Element Value
General object cost 15% of labour cost of ship hull
Hull labour  0 .1 1 5
 LBD  0 .8 6 6
4 5  4 5 .3 6   
 1000  3
CB
material € 950,- per ton
Propulsion & Drive train € N*1086 P^0.82
maneuvering with N as the number of propellers and P as the
installed power per propeller
Bow steering € N*1086 P^0.82
with N as the number of propellers and P as the
installed power per propeller
Rudders + actuator € 50.000,- per propeller
Electrical system 500 €/kVA (incl. gensets)
Bilge & ballast systems € 450 per m of LOA
Cargo pumps & piping 145 €/m3 of LBD
Accommodation 600 €/m2
Mooring gear 13 €/m3 of LBT
Hatch covers at € 24 * Lhold * Bhold1.6
Outfitting €40.000 * W2/3, calculated separately for fore and
aft ship
Miscellaneous Various items €100.000,-
Raisable wheelhouse €65.000,-
Risk margin 5%
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

4. METHOD VALIDATION
To validate the method that was presented in the previous section, the cost of a number of
common ships, as calculated using the cost estimation method, are compared to
previously discussed building cost as stated by VBD [2004], EICB [2011] and
Schuttevaer [2011]. Results from the estimation method are as follows: The Gustav
Koenigs class vessel costs 2.02 million Euros, the Johann Welker/Europa ship class costs
2.30 million Euro and the GMS costs 3.28 million Euros. The cost breakdown for these
vessels is as shown below, in figure 1.

3500000
margin

3000000 hatchcovers
cargo pumps and piping
2500000 bilge and ballast
outfitting
Cost (Euro)

2000000 propulsion & steering

electrical system
1500000 accomodation
mooring gear
1000000 misc equipment cost
labour cost hull
500000 material cost hull
general object cost
0
Gustav Koenigs Johann Welker GMS

Fig. 1 Cost breakdown of three vessels

The values presented in figure 1 are slightly lower than the previously discussed values
by VBD [2004] and EICB [2011]. For the GMS (i.e. a 110 m ship) the calculated cost
almost exactly match those quoted by Schuttevaer [2011] and the prices of the hulls for
the smaller ships are also in the range mentioned by that magazine for 2011. Differences
may be explained by difference in specifications such as accommodation size, installed
power, level of finishing and so on, but probably also by the effects of economic factors
like inflation, wages, material prices and profit margins.

5. RULES OF THUMB
The method that was presented above yields acceptable results, but requires quite a
significant amount of detailed knowledge about the technical specifications of the ship
for which a cost estimate is required. In order to arrive at a more easy-to-use method to
estimate the cost of an inland ship, rules of thumb are developed that only use length,
beam and design draught as variables. To achieve this goal, the cost estimation method is
applied to a large set of computer generated ship designs for inland dry bulk, container
and tank ships with draughts between 1.5 and 4.5 meters, beams between 5 and 25
meters, lengths between 40 and 185 meters and L/B ratios between 4 and 20. For dry bulk
and container vessels, longitudinally and transversely framed designs are explored, while
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

for tank ships, only longitudinal framing is applied. This dataset is elaborately discussed
in Hekkenberg [2013].

From this dataset two separate sets of rules of thumb are derived:
1) Simple rules of thumb in the form of 2nd order polynomial trend lines for
building cost as a function of LBT with different coefficients for various draughts.
These trend lines are valid for ships with a length up to 135 m and L/B values
between 6 and 12, i.e. lengths and L/B values that are common for existing
European inland ships. Due to the limited scatter that occurs for ships that meet
these boundary conditions, it is not necessary to model L, B and Tdesign as
independent variables and the rule of thumb can be kept simple.

2) Advanced rules of thumb for each vessel type and framing system. In this case
L, B and Tdesign are independent variables in a single formula that covers the entire
investigated range of L/B values and lengths, i.e. L/B values between 4 and 20
and lengths up to 185 m.

5.1 Simple rules of thumb

Simple rules of thumb all have the form of equation 3:

C s h ip  c 1   L B T 
2
 c2  L B T  c3 (3)

In table 4, the coefficients and R2 values are given for dry bulk ships. The high R2 values
indicate that the trend line provides a good approximation of the original data.

Table 4: Building cost - coefficients for dry bulk ships

Transverse framing
T C1 c2 c3 r2
1.5 -2.36E-02 1.39E+03 3.54E+05 0.984
2 -1.20E-03 9.67E+02 4.54E+05 0.994
2.5 1.50E-02 6.97E+02 5.56E+05 0.988
3 8.00E-04 6.41E+02 5.65E+05 0.993
3.5 -1.30E-03 5.82E+02 5.85E+05 0.993
4 3.50E-03 5.06E+02 6.78E+05 0.992
4.5 1.90E-03 4.81E+02 7.06E+05 0.992

Longitudinal framing
2
T c1 c2 c3 R
1.5 6.14E-02 1.18E+03 4.91E+05 0.988
2 3.81E-02 8.79E+02 5.22E+05 0.991
2.5 3.24E-02 6.55E+02 6.14E+05 0.993
3 1.83E-02 5.83E+02 6.29E+05 0.993
3.5 2.46E-03 6.03E+02 5.62E+05 0.992
4 1.34E-04 5.67E+02 5.75E+05 0.993
4.5 -1.79E-03 5.38E+02 6.06E+05 0.993
 European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

For container ships, the rule of thumb has the same form as for dry bulk ships, but
coefficients are different. This difference is caused by different demands on the stability
of container ships and, therefore, on the higher depth at equal design draught.
Coefficients for container ships are shown in table 5.

Table 5: Building cost - coefficients for container ships

Transverse framing
2
T (m) c1 c2 c3 R
1.5 6.55E-01 1.29E+03 4.82E+05 0.986
2 2.36E-02 1.02E+03 4.67E+05 0.988
2.5 2.13E-02 7.65E+02 5.69E+05 0.991
3 1.47E-02 6.51E+02 6.12E+05 0.991
3.5 2.61E-03 6.35E+02 5.84E+05 0.991
4 4.80E-03 5.60E+02 6.57E+05 0.992
4.5 7.48E-03 4.92E+02 7.52E+05 0.992

Longitudinal framing
2
T (m) c1 c2 c3 R
1.5 8.20E-02 1.18E+03 5.06E+05 0.987
2 4.49E-02 9.06E+02 5.08E+05 0.991
2.5 3.55E-02 6.69E+02 6.08E+05 0.992
3 2.30E-02 5.89E+02 6.23E+05 0.993
3.5 7.30E-03 5.92E+02 5.78E+05 0.992
4 3.72E-04 5.87E+02 5.49E+05 0.993
4.5 -1.06E-03 5.47E+02 5.96E+05 0.993

Finally, for tank ships, coefficients are presented in table 6. Tank ships are significantly
more expensive than dry bulk or container ships due to their higher steel weight and the
loading and unloading systems for the cargo.

Table 6: Building cost - coefficients for tank ships

2
T (m) c1 c2 c3 R
1.5 -4.89E-03 1.41E+03 5.30E+05 0.996
2 -8.90E-03 1.12E+03 5.85E+05 0.996
2.5 3.60E-03 8.70E+02 7.52E+05 0.994
3 -4.05E-03 8.29E+02 7.77E+05 0.995
3.5 -8.20E-03 8.01E+02 8.12E+05 0.996
4 -8.96E-03 7.59E+02 8.91E+05 0.995
4.5 -7.51E-03 7.12E+02 9.54E+05 0.995

5.2 Advanced rules of thumb

In the previous section, simple rules of thumb in the form of 2nd order polynomials were
presented. These polynomials, however, only cover a limited range of vessels. For the
more ‘exotic’ vessels, these polynomials can no longer be used, since individual values of
 European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

length, beam and design draught play a large role in the overall cost. Therefore, in order to
also provide a building cost estimate for such ships, a more elaborate set of rules of thumb
is developed, using an OLS regression analysis. Since especially the machinery and
accommodation of inland ships vary strongly from ship to ship and are subject to owner
preferences, the rules of thumb are split in two parts for each ship. This allows users to
tune values more easily, depending on any additional information they might have. These
parts are yard cost and non-yard cost. Yard cost covers the cost of erection of the hull and
project management, while non-yard cost covers all other items on board that are typically
supplied and installed by subcontractors. These rules of thumb, presented in table 7 to 9,
cover the entire range of vessels in the previously discussed dataset. In the majority of
case, values obtained using these rule of thumb differ less than 10% from the values
belonging to the individual data points that were used for the regression, while differences
hardly ever exceed 20%. A more detailed statistical analysis of the regression may be
found in appendix E of Hekkenberg [2013].

Table 7: advanced rules of thumb for dry bulk ships

- Yard cost
Transverse framing  5 .9 5 6  1 0
4 2
 7 7 1 .7  L B  1 3 6 .7  ( L T )
0 .7
 6 2 .4 1  L B T

1 .3 0 .7
3 3 .5 3 L T
 1 .9 2 6  1 0 L B  3 .2 4 4  1 0 
B
Longitudinal framing  1 .6 3 2  1 0
5
 7 8 2 .6  L B  1 8 5 .8  ( L T )
2 0 .7
 1 1 .0 6  L B T

1 .3 0 .7
3 3 .5 L T
 2 .4 1 3  1 0 L B  4 3 8 .5 
B
- Non-yard cost
1 .5
5 L 7 1
 6 .0 7 5  1 0  4 0 0 .8   4 9 .0 5  L B T  4 7 4 .2  L B  2 .0 8 1  1 0 
B LT

Table 8: advanced rules of thumb for container ships

- Yard cost
Transverse framing  6 .8 8  1 0
4 2
 9 2 0 .8  L B  9 1 .3 2  ( L T )
0 .7
 5 0 .2 2  L B T

1 .3 0 .7
3 3 .5 L T
 2 .6 6 8  1 0 L B  2651 
B
Longitudinal framing  1 .6 4 6  1 0
5 2
 8 4 2 .2  L B  1 9 3 .1  ( L T )
0 .7
 2 7 .1 4  L B T

1 .3 0 .7
3 3 .5 L T
 2 .7 7 4  1 0 L B  5 0 9 .3 
B
- Non-yard cost
1 .5
5 L 7 1
 6 .0 7 5  1 0  4 0 0 .8   4 9 .0 5  L B T  4 7 4 .2  L B  2 .0 8 1  1 0 
B LT
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Table 9: advanced rules of thumb for tank ships

- Yard cost
6 2 3 3 .5 7 1
 1 .5 1 4  1 0  1 .4 3 7  1 0  L B T  3 .2 0 4  1 0 L B  2 .8 2 9  1 0 
0 .5
(LBT )

- Non-yard cost
1 .5
5 L 7 1
 9 .6 0 8  1 0  8 4 .7 5   2 4 4 .4  L B T  3 1 2 .9  L B  4 .1 1 6  1 0 
B LT

6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In this paper, a method to estimate the building cost of inland ships was presented.
Furthermore, this method was used to derive easier-to-use rules of thumb for the cost of
inland ships for which only length, beam and design draught are known. The method has
been validated for a number of ships with common main dimensions. There is however
still significant room for improvement in the underlying data of the model and its
validation. It is, therefore, recommended to continue to gather information on the
building cost of inland ships and to use this information for further fine-tuning and
validation of the method.

LITERATURE

Aalbers, A.: Evaluation of ship design options, Delft University of Technology,

unpublished, unknown year

Coenen, J.M.G.: Controlling Engineering-to-Order Processes in Shipbuilding. A Model-

Based Approach, ISBN 90-902-3079-5, 2008

Delft University of Technology: Project MTP103 Machine Installatie A, 2009

EICB: Plan van Aanpak Klein Schip, Hoofdrapport, 2011

Hekkenberg, R.G.: Inland Ships for Efficient Transport Chains, TU Delft Library, ISBN
978-94-6186-099-6, 2013

Hunt, E.C. and B.S. Butman: Marine engineering Economics and cost analysis, Cornell
Maritime Press, ISBN 0-87033-458-1, 1995

Kerlen, H.: Über den Einfluss der Völligkeit auf die Rumpfstahlkosten von
Frachtschiffen, Dissertation TH Aachen, 1981

OECD: http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=MEI_PRICES_PPI#, accessed

March 2012
European Inland Waterway Navigation Conference
10-12 September 2014, Budapest, Hungary
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Schneekluth, H., and V. Bertram: Ship design for efficiency and economy, 2nd edition,
Butterworth-Heinemann, ISBN 0750641339, 1998

Schuttevaer: onafgebouwde binnenvaartcasco’s blijven nog jaren in de hoek liggen,

edition August 27th, 2011

Stapersma, D.: Prime movers in an AES power plant: number of units, size and cost, the
case of an all electric hopper dredger fitted with diesel generators, 2001

Stopford, M.: Maritime Economics, 3rd edition, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-27557-1, 2009

VBD: Technische und Wirtschaftliche Konzepte für Flußangepaßte Binnenschiffe,

Auftrag 2317, Bericht 1701, 2004

Vries, C.J. de: Goederenvervoer over water, Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V. , ISBN
9023235495, 2000

Watson, D.G.M.: Practical ship design, Elsevier Science Ltd., ISBN 0080440541, 1998