This past summer Italy’s Fincantieri yard at Monfalcone floated out the largest passenger ship it has ever built, the 141,000gt Royal Princess, but China and Japan have now started construction of similar ships, and cruise ship orders in Europe have been cut in half since the recession. Credit: Fincantieri
Platform supply vessels, such as the recently delivered Evita, completed for Norway’s Ugland Offshore by Kleven Maritime, have been a staple for yards in northern Europe but Japanese, Chinese and South Koran yards are now targeting this sector. Credit: Ugland
EUROPEAN SHIPYARDS FACE GROWING CRISIS Assonave, Italy’s National Association of Shiprepairers and Ship Suppliers (Associazione Nazionale dell’Industria Navalmeccanica), met in Rome earlier this year to discuss the state of the world’s shipbuilding industry. A report presented at the meeting showed that the situation remains critical, particularly for European builders and most specifically for Italian builders. Jim Shaw reports.
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ast year 32 million compensated gross tonnes (cgt) of ships were ordered worldwide, an 18 per cent decrease over 2010. In the first quarter of this year orders totaled less than 5 million cgt, down nearly 25 per cent on the same period in 2011. If this trend continues 2012 will go down as one of the historical years when demand for newbuildings hit a record low. According to Assonave the situation has come about for a number of reasons. As a starter, the world financial crisis of the past few years has led to a considerable slowdown in the seaborne trades. At the same time, a high volume of newbuildings entered the market between 2009 and 2011, the result of cheaper prices offered by shipbuilders. This, in turn, led to a general drop in freight rates which has impacted the profitability of many shipowners and hence their ability to order 8 Industry Europe
new tonnage. The slowdown in orders has not only been recorded in the general cargo sector but also in the liquid cargo and passenger sectors, including cruise ships. The sole exceptions to this trend has been sophisticated offshore vessels and gas tankers, technologically advanced ships in which Norwegian and South Korean yards have excelled. Corrado Antonini, Assonave’s chairman, noted that Italian shipbuilding, which is mainly positioned in specialised niche markets, such as cruise ships, has reflected the general trend of the industry. Orders gained last year by Italian builders amounted to approximately 330,000 cgt, much less than the pre-crisis yearly average of 1 million cgt and well below the record high of 2.8 million cgt. Considering that, in the medium term, world demand is not expected to exceed 40 million cgt, and that these volumes will be matched by a production
capacity which has already reached 60 million cgt, the extent of the serious overcapacity situation becomes clear. Within the context of Italy’s own heavy reliance on cruise ship construction, in 2011 the cruise sector counted 19.5 million passengers worldwide. This compared to 18.8 million in 2010 or an increase of 3.7 per cent. However, Antonini underlined the fact that, in terms of lower berths (LBs), the ships ordered last year amounted to approximately 23,000 LBs compared to over 24,100 LBs in 2010. Furthermore, when the cruise ship orders for the four pre-crisis years of 2004–2007 are compared to 2008–2011 the numbers of ships ordered was halved: 51 against 21. Also raising alarm for European builders has been Germany’s Aida Cruises, which has ordered two ships from Japan using financial support offered by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The cost per berth
