The price of each ship is about $267.3 million, and the cost of building ultra-large container ships has reached a new high!
In February this year, China’s Taiwan-based container shipping company Evergreen Marine announced a $3.245 billion order for 11 24,000 TEU liquefied natural gas (LNG) dual-fuel powered ultra-large container ships. The order would be undertaken by China’s Guangzhou Shipbuilding International (GSI) and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean for five and six ships, respectively.
According to the announcement released by Evergreen Marine at the time, the price of a single ship undertaken by GSI was between $265 million and $295 million, with a total value of $1.325 billion to $1.475 billion; the price of a single ship undertaken by Hanwha Marine was between $265 million and $295 million, with a total value of $1.59 billion to $1.77 billion.
At present, the six orders undertaken by Hanwha Ocean have been confirmed. On March 14, Hanwha Ocean announced that it had taken over six 24,000TEU LNG dual-fuel powered container ships from Evergreen Marine, with the shipbuilding cost of each ship reaching $267.3 million and the total value being approximately $1.6 billion. The cost of each ship is $103 million higher than the same type of ship ordered in 2020.
Alphaliner analysts said that the six new ships Evergreen Shipping ordered from Hanwha Ocean this time are the highest single ship construction prices agreed so far in the container new shipbuilding market. Calculated per TEU, the price of a single cabin is $11,138.
The 2020s was one of the most profitable decades for the shipping industry, and new shipbuilding prices also soared during the same period. Take German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd as an example. Taking German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd as an example, the company ordered six 23,660 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships from Hanwha Ocean (then Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, DSME) at the end of 2020 at a price of about $164 million. In comparison, the price of each ship in Evergreen Marine’s latest order is at least about US$103 million higher.
It is worth mentioning that although the current new shipbuilding prices are still high, Clarksons data shows that the new shipbuilding prices in various market segments have fallen recently. Since the beginning of this year, the Clarksons New Shipbuilding Price Index has fallen by 1%.