A recent report from Clarkson Research said shipyards are now sitting on forward orders for just 1.7 years, which are way below 3.5 years of backlog in 2008.
Merchant ship newbuilding orderbook is now worth $169bn while offshore units valued at $139bn.
In 2012, just 209 shipyards succeeded in winning new ship orders, compared to 540 shipyards securing new workload back in 2007.
Global newbuilding deliveries are forecast to fall by 13% year-on-year in 2013, according to Clarkson.
Last year a combined 152.2m DWT of newbuildings were handed over by global shipyards to each shipowner, and 132.2m DWT of new tonnage is expected to be added this year.