Shipyards bulging with orders as market eyes world without Covid-19

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) -

The shipping industry is gearing up for the post-pandemic explosion in global trade and oil demand, with order books bulging for container ships and crude tankers, reports BIMCO, the industry trade body, on Friday.

Shipyards in China, South Korea and Japan, the three big shipbuilding nations, are on track to deliver 1.5 million TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) of container ships in 2023.

"This would make it the busiest year for container ship deliveries since 2015," noted BIMCO.

Demand in the container ship market is polarised between average and super sized ultra large container ships (ULCS).

Most of the orders, 75, have been for container ships between 15,000 and 16,000 TEU.

But there have also been 14 contanier ships ordered between 14,000 and 24,100 TEU.

These are bigger than the current largest container ship in the fleet currently, which has a capacity of 23,964 TEU.

The crude market is also favouring economies of scale.

Some 27 new very large crude carrier (VLCC) have been ordered over the first five months of the year, or a total of 8.2 million deadweight tonnage (DWT).

But orders for smaller Aframax and Suezmax tankers has amounted to just 1.5 million DWT between January and May.

In contrast, the oil product tanker market have ordered 28 medium range ships and only five long range 2 ships so far, and no long range 1 ships.