Hey guess what? The past 12 months really made quite a decent year for shipping. If you believed one commentator that 2016 had been the “worst for the industry in 30 years”, then you could say that 2017 could only be better.

Figures released this week by Clarksons show that gathering business confidence over the year was reflected in an almost halving of vessel scrapping levels.

But the figure — 33 million dwt demolished in 2017, compared with almost 60 million during 2016 — can also be interpreted as worrying.

There are still too many ships on the water for the freight markets to be in balance, and we do need still to see more tonnage beached.

The bright side of 2017 was that global economic output motored ahead and looks set to end the year up at 3.7%, ahead of many forecasts from Goldman Sachs and the like.

This growth spurt helped take container rates with it, while some bulker hire values hit three-year highs. Obviously, those results were a matter of capacity as much as demand. But there was no such celebrating on the wet side.

The tanker sector generally went through a much more troubled time, partly because of the gathering strength in the price of oil to well over $60 per barrel.

Offshore rigs and vessels continued to be in the doldrums but, at last, there was a feeling that things were bottoming out.

Higher Brent blend prices have meant more capital spending by oil companies, although this has also meant higher bunker costs for shipping across the board.

Wall Street and the City of London were beneficiaries of soaring stock markets and shipping company initial public offerings began to be dusted down.

There was still a spate of Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures, particularly in the offshore-related sector. Mergers and acquisitions, such as the Deep Sea Supply and Farstad tie-up, AP Moller-Maersk's takeover of the Hapag-Lloyd container fleet or the proposed, but failed, merger between Frontline and DHT Holdings, were largely driven by low asset values and rationalisation rather than expansion as such.

The traditional shipping banks were still licking their wounds and offloading their losses but there are new lenders around — not least in China.

And while there was an awful lot of noise around international politics thanks to Donald Trump and Brexit, the maritime world remained relatively unscathed by menacing headlines and talk about them representing the “end of globalisation”.

One debate with a global dimension that certainly did heat up was the one over carbon, even as the US walked away from the Paris climate change agreement.

But there was as much constructive debate about LNG and other new bunker fuels even as some policymakers continued to fret heavily about the slow pace of a concrete IMO decarbonisation strategy.

The wider shipping industry entered 2017 in a significant state of agitation. The first quarter of 2016 had seen earnings in the dry bulk sector at an all-time low and asset values sharply declined.

Finalisation of a $2.5bn Valemax order by Chinese owners, representing 20 vessels and 12 million dwt, at the end of last spring only heightened fears that lessons on overtonnaging were not being learned.

While things had perked up a bit by the end of 2016, owners were wary of an impending influx of new tonnage during the beginning of this year and a slowdown in scrapping.

In fact, it was China that came to the rescue again, with major demand in the early part of the year for coal. It is trying to wean itself onto cleaner fuels but still accounts for half of global coal consumption.

Tankers continued to stumble in 2017, with low rates of VLCC scrapping and newbuildings pouring into the market.

At the same time, the rising price of Brent blend crude has left VLCCs floundering — some spot rates were below $8,500 per day this week.

Suezmax rates have plunged by about 40% over the past year following a 50% slump in 2016, although MR product tankers have performed much better.

Again, it was a decision by China to increase export quotas for state-owned refiners that helped boost product tanker rates.

Thankfully, 2017 overall can be seen as a modest year of recovery, improvement and cautious optimism. We can all raise our glasses of mulled wine and drink to that this Christmas.