The total world shipbuilding market saw a rise in cancellations during January this year with a total of 60 orders cancelled, higher than the monthly average in 2009, according to the Fairplay Shipbuilding Market Forecast from IHS Fairplay. January was the third consecutive month of declining orders since October 2009, but early indications point to an improvement during February.
Contracting of new dry bulk vessels in 2009 was cut by almost two-thirds from the previous year. During 2010 and 2011, ordering is expected to average 300 ships annually, with the number of orders expected to fall in all size segments, but mostly in the 60,000-99,999 dead weight tonnage (dwt) segment.
"During 2009 to 2013 we expect to see dry bulk contracts for 143 million dwt to be signed. This is the effect of the Chinese wanting to transport their cargo on keels built on home ground and their raw material suppliers securing tonnage for deliveries of their cargo, which means it is not an effect of a supply deficit," explained Niklas Bengtsson, senior consultant at IHS Fairplay.
China has the largest total order book at 3,783 ships, an increase of 33 orders during January 2010. South Korea is second with 1,741 and saw 10 new orders in January 2010.
During the 2004-2009 period the world shipping fleet grew by 6.6 percent on average when measured in dwt but only by 1.9 percent if measured in number of ships. This demonstrates an increase in the overall size of ships being ordered.
Deliveries to the dry bulk fleet are expected to grow by 21 percent in 2010, from 47 million dwt last year to 57 million dwt. As a result, bulk fleet capacity is calculated to grow by 7.5 percent this year, by 10 percent next year and by the same amount during 2012. This is higher than the forecast increase for global commodity trade volumes.