Beating Chinese Shipbuilders

Korean shipbuilders won 42% of the total global shipbuilding orders of 26 million CGTs from January to November this year, taking first place among countries around the world.

South Korea is almost assured to take the first place in annual shipbuilding order receipts this year, the first time in seven years.

According to Clarkson Research, a British shipbuilding and shipping industry analysis agency, on Dec. 10, Korea won orders of 10.9 million CGTs during the period between January and November this year, which was 42% of the global shipbuilding orders estimated at 26 million CGTs.

Korea has been performing well this year, exceeding its annual order volume of 10 million CGTs in September. China, which had topped the world market by the end of last year, has only received a total of 8.74 million CGTs (34%) by November.

Korea ranked first in 2011 in terms of annual order volume, but was pushed to second place by China for the sixth consecutive year from 2012 to last year.

In November, China posted the highest order volume by winning 1.53 million CGTs out of the world’s total of 2.11 million CGTs, but it was not enough to catch up with Korea in terms of annual order volume. Last month, Korea posted 300,000 CGTs (14%) in new order receipts while Japan won 190,000 CGTs (9%).

Clarkson analyzed that the global shipbuilding industry was recovering. Over the past three years, global shipbuilding orders in the January-November period steadily increased from 12 million CGTs in 2016, to 23.77 million CGTs in 2017 (a year-on-year increase of 98%) and further to 26 million CGTs in 2018 (a year-on-year increase of 9%).

Meanwhile, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) announced that it signed an order contract to build one liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier with Maran Gas Maritime, the largest shipping company in Greece and a subsidiary of the Angelicoussis Group. With this order, DSME received orders worth about US$6.22 billion for a total of 43 vessels including 15 LNG tankers this year, reaching 85% of the target (US$7.3 billion) for this year.

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