Global LNG carrier market continuing to grow

Clarksons Research announced on June 29 that a total of 108 LNG carriers were ordered in the first half of this year. The figure is an all-time high, exceeds last year’s total, 86, and increased even with the overall new ship orders on the decline in that period.

More than half of the orders went to South Korean shipbuilders. Specifically, Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries won 21, 18 and 24, respectively. Samsung Heavy Industries received orders for 14 LNG carriers on June 22 alone.

With the global LNG demand expected to increase in the wake of the war in Ukraine, Qatar Energy’s project is expected to lead to even more LNG carrier orders. Qatar is the world’s largest LNG producer and the state-run oil company signed slot contracts for 45 LNG carriers with each of the three South Korean shipbuilders and 16 with Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding in June 2020. The dock occupation contracts are leading to actual orders these days.

The prices of the carriers are continuing to rise based on the increasing demand. For example, that of a 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier rose from US$210 million to US$231 million from the first week of January to the last week of this month. The unit price of some of those to be built by Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering is US$240 million.

Source: BusinessKorea