In the overall plain shipbuilding market last year, new orders for LNG carriers soared by nine-fold for its high added value and strong market demand.
As a clean, safe and efficient energy, LNG has been widely used in various fields and thus its transporting vehicle – LNG carriers has also warmed up in recent years. The development of LNG carriers in China is a little late and lags behind S.Korea and Japan, however some big shipyards like Hudong-Zhonghua, DISC and Nantong COSCO have successfully won LNG carrier newbuidling orders from overseas owners.
Due to its high value, most owners choose newbuilding LNG carriers, making the transaction of secondhand LNG carriers much more difficult. Eshiptrading has received few enquiries about secondhand LNG carriers in the last two months, still the supply information is relatively insufficient.
Relatively, LPG carrier is not so high-end as LNG carrier in China and also in secondhand market. Eshiptrading has seen some demand for LPG carrier in the last two months, especially for 15-year 1,000-2,000 CBM LPG carriers. Yet the supply information of LPG carrier is almost as short as LNG carrier, making trade matching little hard.
Overall secondhand LPG carrier market is more active. The 5,000 CBM LPG carrier is the hot type domestically. And the capacity of 3,500CBM has been on rise recently with some newbuilds entering the market.
More and more ship owners now turn to Chinese shipyard for LPG carrier newbuilding for their low prices with the 80s-built elder vessels gradually being scrapped.
Ministry of Transport of the PRC has issued an announcement to control the LNG and LPG projects in coastal areas last year to prevent the capacity oversupply. The policy takes positive effects on secondhand gas carrier market and also further balances the market supply and demand.
The demand for LNG and LPG as alternative environment-friendly energy is destined to increase globally. The potential demand for gas carriers will be surely considerable.
In China, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Fujian are the current main building basis of gas carriers. With the growth of the market, Chinese gas carrier building and trading market is to brace a bright future.