South Korean shipbuilding

South Korean shipbuilding industries contracted a total of 1.93m cgt, accounted for 50.7% of global new order in the first quarter 2012 and took the first place, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Korea Shipbuilders' Association on April 19.

During the same period, overall 3.8m cgt were contracted in the world - 1.05m cgt in China, 0.3m cgt in Europe and 0.15m cgt in Japan.

Meanwhile, global new order were cut by 58.9% y-o-y due to fleet oversupply, slowdown in global economic recovery, etc.

There had been steady orderings for energy-related LNG carrier, offshore support vessel, tanker, etc., particularly for product carrier. However, contracts for bulker and containership decreased by over-tonnage, fragile shipping market, etc.

Korean yards raked in massive orders for offshore plant, such as drillship, FPSO, LNG FSRU, etc. and gas carriers.

Of total contracts sealed in the first three months this year, Korean yards booked every order for FPSO, LNG FSRU and LNG carriers - one FPSO ($2bn), one LNG FSRU ($280m) and nine LNG carriers ($1.93bn in total) - as well as three of four drillships ($1.6bn), 66% of tankers.

Global orderbook, as of the end of March this year, decreased by about 10% to 112.41m cgt, while Korea saw 35.64m-cgt orders on the book, down by 8.1% and accounted for 31.7% of global backlog.

Korea's orderbook had been 54.15m cgt in the end of 2009, 44.96m cgt in 2010 and 38.78m cgt in 2011.

Meanwhile, Korean shipbuilding industry's overall delivery for export ship for Q1 is estimated to be around $12.3bn, down by 25% year-on-year.


Published : April 19, 2012