High ship order may result in oversupply, says consultant

PETALING JAYA: The current record high global shipping orderbook may create long-term oversupply problems in the dry-bulk, container shipping and tanker sectors, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd.

Managing director Nigel Gardiner said base-case projections indicated that the newbuilding requirement to satisfy incremental increases in ship demand and the need to replace scrapped ships by 2013 would be about 97 million compensated gross tonnes (cgt).

However, the current orderbook and scheduled deliveries for this period was double that figure, he said in a statement on the Drewry New World Shipbuilding Review and Forecast 2009/10 report.

“The projected newbuilding requirement rises to 120 million cgt over the period 2014 to 2018 and to 139 million cgt up to 2023.

“In these periods, the newbuilding requirement is quite large because of the need to replace ageing parts of the world fleet,” he said.

However, he said the more intense focus was on the next five years, when the dry-bulk sector provided a good example of the problems confronting shipbuilding and shipping alike.

He said there were 6,864 bulk carriers, or 422 million deadweight tonnes, in service early this year.