60 LNG carriers set to be booked Orders for LNG carriers, which have been sluggish until last year, are expected to be placed in full swing from this year. And we raise our evaluation to "overweight" on shipbuilding stocks, the Taurus Investment & Securities Co., LTD. said on May 3.
With the launch of the Qatari LNG project in the mid 2000s, a lot of orders for LNG carriers have been placed until 2007. However, from 2008 on, orders plummeted, with 4 ships in 2008, 0 ships in 2009 and 5 ships in 2010. So, LNG issue has not been discussed much.  
But things have changed and demand for natural gases is likely to increase in mid-European countries, Central and South Africa, and Southeastern Asian countries.
European countries increase LNG imports in order to their dependancy on LNG from Russia, and Central and South Africa start to use natural gas as a new energy source. Southeastern Asian countries are likely to increase LNG imports due to increase in domestic demand and depletion of existing LNG.
Also on the production side, new projects are expected to be launched. Projects for producing a total of 240,000,000 tons of LNG(140,000,000 tons in Australia, 50,000,000 tons in the US and 50,000,000 tons in Russia) can be launched. If countries like Canada, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Nigeria join the projects, projects worth about 300,000,000 tons are expected.  
"Just simple calculation suggests around 386 LNG carriers will be needed to carry the gas and to do this, orders for 60 additional LNG carriers will have to be placed in the future. The fact that Golar LNG, which is not engaged in any LNG production project, ordered 6 ships recently shows sharp increase in orders for LNG carriers is expected", said Taurus Investment & Securities Co., LTD. researcher, Sang-hoo Lee.
Drastic increase in LNG carrier order is expected from 2012, and fierce competition between shipbuilders in South Korea and China are expected. South Korean shipbuilders, which are the world's strongest players in building LNG carriers, will have advantageous position in the competition, Lee added.