Korean Shipbuilders Take 58% of Global Orders in Nov.
Korean shipbuilders accounted for 58 percent of the global ship orders in November, taking the No. 1 position for the second consecutive month. The average unit price of ships ordered to Korean shipbuilders was 3.5 times that of Chinese shipbuilders as Korean shipbuilders focused on high value-added ships such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.
Korea took up 770,000 CGT (58 percent) of the 1.32 million CGT ordered worldwide in November, said Clarkson Research, a British shipbuilding and shipping market research company, on Dec. 7. During the same period, China logged 460,000 CGT (35 percent).
Korea also outpaced China in terms of order quality. The average unit price of ships ordered to Korea was US$123 million, 3.5 times higher than the US$35 million of Chinese shipbuilders. China landed a large number of container ship contracts based on their price competitiveness, while Korean shipbuilders' mainstay was LNG carriers, which require higher technology than container ships. LNG carriers accounted for 45 percent of the world’s ship orders in November.
The cumulative vessel orders worldwide from January to November this year reached 45.7 million CGT, up 138 percent from 18.97 million CGT a year earlier. China placed first with an order intake of 21.92 million CGT (918 ships and 49 percent), followed by Korea with 16.96 million CGT (397 ships and 38 percent) and Japan with 3.93 million CGT (203 ships and 9 percent).
Meanwhile, Samsung Heavy Industries announced that it had won an order for three LNG carriers worth US$270 million per unit. The latest order boosted the company's order intake in 2021 to 78 ships worth US$11.8 billion, which exceeds its annual target of US$9.1 billion by 30 percent.