Currently, the Asian shipbuilders hand-held orders dominated by liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers and containerships, shipbrokers said the global containerships newbuilding market in June this year will usher in a number of “unusual” new orders, the delivery period or will be scheduled until 2029.
“There are an enormous amount of newbuilding negotiations ongoing, predominantly driven by operators but also a few non-operating owners signing LOIs to try and secure berths at yards already fairly close to capacity,” broker Braemar noted in its latest container markets summary.
French shipping giant CMA CGM has ordered six 8,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel powered containerships at Samsung Heavy Industries, and the two sides are negotiating for a series of up to 12 15,000 TEU containerships, according to Braemar. If this order is confirmed, it will be Samsung Heavy Industries’s first containership contract since July 2023, as well as the first containership order for the South Korean shipbuilding industry after several months.
In July 2023, Taiwanese Evergreen Marine placed an order with Samsung Heavy Industries for 16 16,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel powered containerships, with an order value of about US$3.13 billion, and scheduled to be delivered by December 2027. Meanwhile, another eight 16,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel powered containerships of Evergreen Marine were contracted by Nippon Shipbuilding (a joint venture of Imabari Shipbuilding and Japan Marine United).
Another shipbroker MB Shipbrokers (formerly Maersk Broker) sources that Jiangnan Shipbuilding and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, both under the China State Shipbuilding Group, are negotiating with several liner companies for orders of 13,000 TEU to 14,000 TEU containerships, with deliveries scheduled up to 2029.
Although the container newbuilding market was weak in the first quarter of this year, the activity of this new shipbuilding market has increased significantly recently, and there is constant news of orders being confirmed.Recently, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, both subsidiaries of CSSC, have signed orders for as many as 12 containerships.
According to the latest data from the BIMCO, the global hand-held order book for new ships now stands at around 133 million compensated gross tonnages (CGTs), an increase of around 56 million CGTs from the latest low point of the new ship order book at the end of 2020. LNG carriers and container ships accounted for 35% and 30% of the growth, respectively, while the remainder was made up of bulk carriers, tankers and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers.