(Yicai) Dec. 5 -- New shipbuilding orders worldwide will likely experience a sharp drop this year, according to the chairman of the Shanghai Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.

“The overall volume of global new shipbuilding orders is expected to plunge this year, with new ship prices remaining at a relatively high level,” Xing Wenhua said at the four-day Marintec China in Shanghai, which ended today.

Since 2021, the global new shipbuilding market has experienced growth, leading to a situation of overall tight capacity. According to statistics from Clarkson Research, global new ship orders are still expected to reach around 120 million deadweight tons, remaining at a historically high level.

The decline in new shipbuilding orders this year is related to the combined effects of idle shipbuilding capacity and global economic uncertainty, Xing explained.

However, looking at future trends, factors on both the supply and demand sides, including the scrapping of aging vessels, the release of replacement demand for green ships, and the short-term difficulty in expanding high-quality shipbuilding capacity, will keep ship prices relatively high, he pointed out.

Since the beginning of this year, major global shipbuilders have secured massive orders for large cruise ships, with the global order book for cruise ships reaching 72 units.

In addition, alternative fuel-powered vessels have also begun to account for an increasingly large share of new shipbuilding orders. Data shows that new orders for alternative fuel ships increased 78 percent in the first half of this year compared with the entire last year.

Many shipping companies are experimenting with various types of alternative fuel vessels. For example, orders for green ships powered by liquefied natural gas and methanol are growing rapidly, while those for zero-carbon vessels, including those powered by ammonia fuel cells, have also achieved breakthroughs.

Editor: Futura Costaglione