Amid continuing recession in shipping industry, the global shipowners’ investment in newbuilding in 2012 turned out to have sharply decreased and Greek and Chinese owners are not the exceptions.
According to Greek ship broker, Golden Destiny, a total of approximately 1,423 vessels (about $91.8bn worth) were newly ordered globally last year, representing the amount of capacity contracted dropped by 40% compared to 1,782 vessels ($ 93.7bn worth) in 2011.
However, the newbuilding spend is shown to have slipped by a small margin, from $93.7bn in 2011 to $91.8bn last year. The figures above do not include orders where the price was not confirmed.
As for the Greek owners, against 185 newbuildings invested in 2011, they placed orders for 116 vessels for newbuilding in 2012; they are 44 bulkers, 29 tankers, 22 containerships, etc. Of all, bulkers took the biggest part.
When considering China, it awarded orders for 36 tankers last year (against nine tankers in 2011) although overall newbuilding orders fell sharply, as well.
In the second-hand ship market, while Greek owners were active in purchase backed by the drop in shipbuilding prices, acquiring a total of 216 vessels for more than $3.6bn, Chinese invested only $768m in purchase of 103 vessels.
Last year, Greek shipowners are said to have purchased the second hand vessels for 103 bulkers, 81 tankers, 24 boxships. When the volume of bulkers and tankers grew drastically, the boxship purchase fell compared to the 41 vessels in the previous year.