Korean Yards Reclaim Lead

Korean yards have reclaimed the first place in global ship deliveries from their Chinese counterparts as they accounted for over a fourth of ships delivered on global scale in 2014.

Korean shipbuilders had the largest share in Compensated Gross Tonnage (CGT) delivery scheme in 2014 with a 35% share of the 35.0m CGT reported delivered, Clarksons’ data shows.

This was the first time that Korean yards output more CGT than their Chinese counterparts since 2009, delivering a reported 12.1m CGT.

Whilst global output fell 6% y-o-y in 2014 in terms of CGT, Korean activity dropped 3%, supported by firmer deliveries in several of the more specialised sectors.

London-based Clarksons attributed last year’s recovery of Korean shipbuilders to strong deliveries in the LNG carrier and 8,000+ TEU (VLCS) boxship sectors.

Korean yards accounted for 70% of the 5.7m CGT delivered in the VLCS sector and almost 90% of the 2.8m CGT delivered in the LNG sector.

Chinese delivery volumes in terms of CGT, fell from 43% of global deliveries in 2012 to 33% in 2014 amid lower output levels. This was driven by a 27% drop y-o-y in Chinese bulker deliveries, in terms of CGT, in 2014, according to Clarksons.

 Japanese yards remained steady in the third place when it comes to share of global deliveries in 2014 (19% of CGT) with 6.6m CGT reported delivered. Yards in the Philippines delivered their second largest volume of tonnage on record in 2014 in terms of CGT (1.0m CGT).

European shipbuilding nation secured a spot among the ‘top 5’ delivery list for the first time since 2010, with German yards delivering a reported 0.5m CGT (the cruise ship sector accounted for over 65% of this).

Clarksons predicts that the deliveries will increase 9% this year to 38.0m CGT after four years of decline.

“Strong boxship and LNG deliveries from Korean yards in 2015 look set to support their delivery share this year and a total of 13.1m CGT is projected for delivery by Korean builders. Meanwhile, Chinese yards are projected to deliver a similar 12.8m CGT in 2015,” Clarksons said.

Looking to 2016, a total of 36.3m CGT is expected for delivery and Chinese and Korean yards’ delivery shares are projected to stay closely aligned again at around 35%.

Source: Clarksons