Shipbuilding’s supercycle faces a reality check

here is plenty of evidence that the industry is in the midst of a shipbuilding supercycle.

Hanwha Ocean, a Korean major yard, recently disclosed, for instance, that its yard had a capacity utilisation rate of 101.1% in the third quarter of 2025. Likewise, data from Danish Ship Finance shows that 20% of all ships on order today will deliver only after more than three years from now. At the beginning of 2021, only around 5% of the global orderbook had been due for delivery beyond the following three years. Broker BRS has argued that the shipbuilding industry entered a supercycle in 2021, equivalent to the 2003 to 2008 boom. Deliveries in 2025, in cgt terms, are set to be the highest since the end of the last boom in 2012, according to data from broker SSY, with the rate of deliveries in 2026 and 2027 remaining very strong.

Now some analysts believe that the supercycle will be supercharged shortly. Analysts at broker Hartland suggest the early 2030s will see yards fill up once again to refresh the large chunks of the bulker and tanker fleets built from 2008 to 2012. By January 2028, Hartland analysis estimates 45% of dry bulk tonnage will be 16 years old or over, rising to 50% by the end of the decade. 25% of the dry bulk fleet today is 16 years old or over. This old age trend is even more extreme in the tanker sector, 38% of the crude fleet was built pre-2010. Much of the older segment of the fleets was built in Chinese yards back when build-quality standards were far lower.

“On top of higher maintenance costs and more frequent dry-docks, charter markets discounts will continue to widen as the efficiency gap between old ships and newbuilds widens ever further,” Hartland argued in a recent report.

Christopher Rex, research head at Danish Ship Finance, cautioned that it was wrong to assume that today’s bulk and tanker demand is broadly maintained and that policy and energy-system changes do not structurally erode fossil tonne-miles.

“The shift from fuel to power, electrification, and efficiency in end-use sectors is likely to compress fossil-fuel demand growth over the next decade and shorten average hauls in several trades. In that world, the replacement ratio does not need to be one-for-one,” Rex told Splash Extra, explaining that a large part of an ageing fleet can be retired without reproducing today’s capacity in full.

Dr Roar Adland, head of research at SSY, argued that with the container and LNG sectors being well supplied with modern tonnage already, there will be plenty of yard capacity available for the building of tankers and bulkers by the end of this decade, giving more than enough time for fleet renewal prior to the mid-2030s which is when what he described as the “noughties boomers” would ordinarily be scrapped.

Mark Williams, who heads up consultancy Shipping Strategy, maintained that there is insufficient shipyard capacity to build or retrofit the global fleet in time for likely green targets set for 2050.

“That means newbuilding prices will rise with demand to levels where more mothballed building capacity comes on stream,” Williams said, adding: “There is an opportunity here for US and European shipyards if only the political will and support is forthcoming to finance, staff and insure the yards.”

SOURCE : splash247