- Shipowners are back at procuring new ships.
- They are opting for bulk carriers.
- China is emerging as the biggest global player amongst the shipbuilding nations.
In their weekly report, brokers at Banchero Costa noted that the number of new vessel orders during last year was 2.5 times that of 2016: “However, the shipbuilding industry is unlikely to be out of the woods just yet, with order numbers still sharply lower compared to a peak of 1,562 orders placed in 2013, and 1,269 orders placed in 2015. This rise in ship buying trends is due to the procurement of 411 new builds contracted by ship owners in 2017 compared to the 166 vessels acquired in the previous year. The newly acquired ones are all above 20,000 DWT bulk carriers and 500 TEU container ships.”
Although the growing market suggests an increasing order of dry bulk carriers but the ship financing and bad shipping debts can act as limiting factor which might cause difficulties for mid-size shipping companies.
Following the 2016 downturn due to over-capacity in the global fleet, last year container sector companies ordered new ships for a total capacity of 671,000 TEU, compared to 280,000 TEU the previous year, according to data from the French analysis company Alphaliner. Of the 109 vessels ordered last year, ships under 3,000-TEU capacity numbered 83. Those 20 orders for ships in the 18,000-TEU or over category stand out compared to the zero orders of 2016 – with some of those having signed contracts for 22,000-TEU ships, such as the Swiss MSC, and the French CMA CGM.
The increase in the newbuilding market, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking reported, was aided by a “slightly more speculative attitude in the dry bulk sector, thanks to the recovery of freight rates recorded in 2017; while growth on the tanker market front was more “opportunistic”,” the Greek brokers said, taking advantage of lower prices on offer by most shipbuilders. Alphaliner underlines how the volume of overall orders for 2017 is not too impressive when compared to that of 2015, when 2.2 million TEU’s worth of new ships entered the global fleet, and of which 56 vessels had a capacity of 18,000 TEU or higher.
With 508 shipbuilding contracts, China is emerging as the biggest player amongst the shipbuilding nations, preceded by Japan which had 475 contracts in 2015. Of this 508, 332 were bulk orders. Chinese ship builders have overtaken South Korea, the largest builder of tanker and container ships with a whooping 198 orders as compared to the 112 orders of South Korea. In 2016 there were just four newbuildings carried out by nations other than the three big players, last year that grew to 65, or 15.8% of the total, the highest share of the last five years. China (48% of total orders, distributed across 27 shipyards), South Korea (27% of the share across nine shipyards); Japan (8.7%, across 13 shipyards) are the key players in the shipbuilding sector.
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Source: The MediTelegraph
