Korean Shipbuilders Buck Decline to Grab Half of Market

Global ship orders in the third quarter plummeted 50 percent from the second quarter due to the financial crisis in Europe. Despite this, Korean shipbuilders flexed their muscles

by grabbing half of the orders worldwide. According to market researcher Clarkson on Wednesday, global ship orders in the third quarter fell to 5 million compensated gross tons (CGTs), marking a 52 percent quarterly decrease.
Orders in the first three months of the year stood at 8.3 million CGTs, rising to 10.4 million CGTs in the second quarter. Aggregate orders from January to September reached just 23.56 million CGTs, showing a slowdown of 22.3 percent on-year. This was caused by a glut of ships in the market, shrinking shipping finance due to debt woes in the eurozone and delayed economic recovery in advanced countries.
Orders took a huge hit in the second half in tandem with Europe’s snowballing debt crisis, falling to their lowest number in September since 2010.
The Korean shipbuilding industry remained a world-beater, however, winning 52 percent of global ship orders, or 2.47 million CGTs, during the third quarter. Korean shipbuilders won all 18 orders for liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships placed in that three-month period, as well as three out of five contracts for drill ships and five out of seven orders for large container ships with more than 800 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units).
China accounted for 27.8 percent of the total orders with 1.37 million CGTs, followed by Japan with 10.5 percent.