Korean shipbuilders yield No.1 spot to Chinese rivals

South Korean shipbuilders yielded their No. 1 position to Chinese rivals in August, according to Clarkson Research on Tuesday, as they shifted toward high-value vessels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers with heavy order backlogs.

It was the first time for Korea to trail China in the shipbuilding market since April this year. 

"We were selective in taking orders, focusing on LNG ships and other high-value ships," said an industry official.

China won 54% or 35 of a total of 51 ships ordered worldwide last month. That was equivalent to 1.02 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) of a total 1.88 million CGT of the vessels. CGT measures the amount of work required to construct ships.

South Korea came next with 12 vessels or 41% of the total, which translated into 760,000 CGT.

The August figure for South Korea was down 34% from the month before. 

CUMULATIVE ORDERS

The poor August results moved South Korean shipbuilders to second place by orders received during this year's January-August period.

In the first eight months to August, China took a 45% share of global shipbuilding orders. South Korea accounted for 43%.

China represented 12.35 million CGT, compared with South Korea’s 1.192 million CGT.

In the LNG carrier market, however, South Korea solidified its No. 1 position with a 75% share for the January-August period. It snapped up orders for 83 vessels out of 111 ships ordered during the period.

In August alone, the country swept eight LNG ship orders, led mainly by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. The world's largest shipbuilder said last month that it won a 1.96 trillion won ($1.5 billion) order to build seven 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers.

BACKLOGS

Order backlogs remained heavy. China recorded 43.62 million CGT of undelivered ships as of end-August, or 42% of the total backlogs worldwide. South Korea had a backlog of 35.97 million CGT, or 35% of the total.

On a year-on-year basis, South Korea saw a 26% jump in its backlogs as of end-August, compared with a 12% increase for China during the same period.

The Newbuilding Price Index measured by Clarkson rose to its highest level of 161.81 points in 13 years. The figure marked its 21st consecutive increase since December 2020.

The price of 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers crawled up to $240 million on average from $236 million in July. The average price of very-large-size crude carriers increased to $120 million, versus the previous month’s $119 million.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.