China's Jan-Feb new ship orders down 17% on year

For the first two months of 2022, the new vessel orders received by Chinese shipbuilders amounted to 5.65 million deadweight tons (DWT), down by 17% on year, against the 131.8% on-year surge during whole 2021, according to the latest release from China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) via its official WeChat account on March 18. Among all new vessel orders over January-February, 5.61 million DWT were for exports, up 15% on year or accounting for a massive 99.3% of the total, the CANSI data showed.

Meanwhile, China's shipbuilders completed vessels totalling 6.53 million DWT in the first two months, down 9.6% on year, among which exports accounted for 6.06 million DWT, down 8.9% on year or contributing to 92.8% of the total, according to CANSI.

By February, the backlog of vessel orders held by Chinese shipyards still posted an on-year increase, up 38.8% on year to reach 97.9 million DWT, which was also 2.1% higher than that at the end of 2021, and among the total, 86.9 million DWT or 88.8% will be for exports, up 39.6% on year.

"Chinese shipbuilders saw their backlog at a relatively high level due to the booming shipping market last year, and many are working at their full capacity. So demand for ship plates is strong now," an industry analyst observed.

As of February 28, China's price of 20mm ship plate was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 5,592/tonne ($881/t) including the 13% VAT, up Yuan 64/t from that at the end of last December.

CANSI's survey among the 75 domestic shipbuilding enterprises showed that the surveyed yards turned losses into gains during January-February, with their profits reaching Yuan 24 million in total, against a loss of Yuan 340 million in the same period of 2021. In addition, the 75 surveyed shipbuilders saw their main business revenues grow by 13.9% on year to Yuan 40 billion during the past two months.

Over January-February, China's shipbuilding sector maintained its top position in the global shipbuilding industry, with its completed vessels, new ship orders and backlog contributing to 49.9%, 49% and 47.7% respectively of the world's total, the CANSI data showed.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.