Amid new orders having plummeted by 50% compared to last year as a total of 373 new orders of a combined 16.5m dwt have been placed during the first five months of 2012, offshore-related special vessels, gas carriers and MR product tankers have been outstanding, as overall 101 offshore newbuildings, majority of them being offshore supply vessels, 45 gas carriers (14 LNG carriers and 31 LPG carriers) and 41 MR PCs having been ordered.
According to Clarkson Research, during January-May, 115 bulkers have been contracted - 48 panamaxes, 32 handysizes, 24 handymaxes, 11 capesizes, etc.
Of a total of 70 tankers contracted during the same period, most of them were MR PCs with 41 contracts being placed, followed by VLCC (seven inked), aframax (seven), etc.
Only nine boxship contracts have been placed by May, eight of them are small-size vessel under 2,200 teu.
Meanwhile, overall, $22.3bn has been invested in new ship orders in the first five months of the year, which represents a year-on-year decline of 47%.
$10.9bn has been invested in offshore sector, $3.6bn in gas carrier ($2.7bn in LNG carrier and $900m in LPG carrier).
Investment in the tanker sector only remained at $3bn, while majority of tanker investment has been in the MR product sector ($2.8bn). A total of $3.2bn and $300m have been invested in bulker and containership.
As for new order by shipyard country, South Korea placed the 1st with $11.7bn fresh order intakes, followed by China ($3.6n), Brazil ($1.9bn), Norway ($1.4bn), Japan ($1.3bn) and Germany ($900m), etc.
In case of investment by owner country, Norway took the first place with $5.4bn investment, followed by the US ($3bn), Japan ($2.3bn), Greece ($2.1bn), Brazil ($1.7bn) and China ($1bn).