Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) has mostly filled its order book for the next 2-1/2 years as the pandemic drove demand for container ships, leaving little room to meet the needs of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, reports Reuters quoting a senior company executive.
Rising LNG exports
With U.S. LNG exports rising, more LNG carriers are travelling longer distances to customers in North Asia and Europe while European countries have snapped up floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) as they ramp up LNG imports to replace Russian gas supplies in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
However, shipyards in South Korea and China are unable to accommodate demand for new LNG vessels as they work to meet a flood of orders for new container ships following global supply chain disruptions and port congestion that have held up ships in the United States and China. This supports spot chartering rates for LNG carriers which have hit all-time highs.
“A huge volume of new-build orders have taken up slots in China and South Korean shipyards,” K.W. Kim, senior vice president at Hyundai Heavy Industries, flagship unit of the world’s largest LNG carrier builder KSOE, told Reuters.
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Source: Reuters
