The global order book for container ships has climbed to a record 9.1 million TEU. The order book has never been larger.
The reports on newbuilding orders in the container shipping industry have not stopped for a long time. There are weeks with more and weeks with fewer orders, but overall shipping company activity is high.
In addition to the orders already confirmed, almost 800 newbuildings are in the pipeline, writes the industry service Alphaliner in its latest market report.
In relation to a global fleet of around 7,300 ships and 31.9 million TEU, the share of the order book is currently around 29%. And this is likely to continue. Alphaliner claims to have learned that a whole series of further newbuildings are currently being negotiated, including some major orders for large liner shipping companies.
Order book with extremely long delivery times
“Apart from the industry’s need to put a more energy-efficient and therefore more environmentally friendly fleet into service soon, there is another factor that is driving ordering activity: Today’s extremely long lead times for container ships,” say the analysts. Although the order book is larger than ever before in terms of capacity, it also extends much further into the future than ever before, according to the data. Some of the newbuilds are not due to be delivered until 2030 if everything goes “according to plan” and another major crisis like the one after 2008 does not cause orders to be canceled, delayed or adjusted.
“With a few exceptions, the market has not seen such long lead times since the order boom of 2005-2007, which preceded the market crash of 2008,” say the analysts.
Accordingly, the long lead times currently contracted could only be achieved because several shipyard groups have committed to large capacity expansion projects that will open up new slots for ship newbuilding from 2027 and 2028. These include players such as Yangzijiang, New Times Shipbuilding and the Hengli Group. In addition, the world’s largest shipbuilding group CSSC has started accepting orders for container ships from sister shipyards that normally focus on other ship types. These include shipyards such as Shanhaiguan Shipyard, Guangzhou Shipyard International and CSIC Tianjin.
