Shipbuilders enjoyed a record year for liquefied natural gas tanker contracts in 2022 — and they expect the boom to continue for some time as demand for the fuel rises.
Global orders for the specialist vessels reached 163 in 2022, data from Refinitiv show, more than double the the previous year’s figure and the highest since 2011, the earliest data available.
As prices surge, big South Korean shipbuilders responsible for the bulk of the existing LNG tanker fleets told the Financial Times they expected a boost to their earnings despite high material costs weighing on margins.
But industry observers have warned that elevated steel prices, labour shortages and limits on construction capacity will constrain shipbuilders’ ability to capitalise on the rush to secure the tankers.
“The LNG tanker boom is helping boost our profitability,” said Ka Sam-hyun, chief executive of Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the world’s largest shipbuilder and the holding company of Hyundai Heavy Industries. “We expect to post full-year profits in 2023,” he added, following two annual net losses.
He said the company expected the trend to “continue at least for the next two to three years, with more than 50 new LNG carriers likely to be ordered a year”.
“Because of tougher environmental regulations, LNG is preferred to coal,” he added. “So demand for LNG tankers will remain firm.”
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries, which both reported net losses in 2021, also said they expected to notch up profits this year.
But Daewoo said high steel prices were “eating into our earnings”, while Samsung said it was in talks with steelmakers “to lower the prices”.
Analysts said the large number of global orders were tied to Qatar’s expansion of its North Field project, a plan to increase the Gulf state’s LNG export capacity from 77mn tonnes a year now to 126mn tonnes by 2027. The International Gas Union estimates that the North Field project alone would need about 150 LNG carriers.
“It is a simple case of supply and demand. [There is] an unprecedented amount of demand coming into the market in a relatively short amount of time,” said Andrew Selby Bennett, head of LNG at shipbroker Braemar. The Qatar orders, he added, were “a once-in-a-lifetime event”.
The majority of 2022’s LNG tanker orders are expected to be delivered by the end of 2026.
Demand for LNG is surging around the globe, with Europe rushing to find alternatives to piped natural gas from Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine while developing nations in regions such as Asia try to transition from coal to less polluting natural gas.
To meet demand, LNG projects are being expanded, particularly in the US, now the largest LNG supplier to Europe.
While not expected to reach the same level as 2022, new orders for LNG tankers are likely to continue, said Kaushal Ramesh, head of LNG analytics at Rystad Energy.
“Fundamentally, we are not done yet in terms of progressing US projects,” he said. “There will be more sales and purchase agreements announced, possibly through the next couple of years or so. The Qataris are not yet done with their new-build programme for the expansion projects. All of them will need vessels.”
There were 641 LNG tankers, highly specialised vessels able to carry liquefied gas at -163C, in operation worldwide as of April, International Gas Union data show. Vessels made by Korean shipbuilders accounted for 70 per cent of the total.
Korean shipbuilders also dominated the new orders in 2022, taking 105 orders. Shipbuilding capacity at the Korean companies is full for the next three years. Labour shortage in the sector is leading to higher costs, which is also feeding through to tanker prices.
The average cost of an LNG tanker rose to $250mn in 2022, from $200mn in 2021, industry experts say.
Selby Bennett cautioned that the benefit of the surging orders for shipbuilders could be “quite marginal”.
“LNG carriers are some of the biggest ships in the world by nature. And they are highly specialised ships and they need specialised personnel. There are just not enough people, experts and space to build this volume of ships.”
The limits on capacity faced by Korean shipyards have driven “a flight towards Chinese shipyards”, said Rystad’s Ramesh. China only had 11 order contracts in 2021 but the number swelled to 57 in 2022, according to Refinitiv data. Chinese LNG tankers could be $20mn to $30mn cheaper than the Korean vessels, according to Ramesh.
“Some customers seem to be placing orders with Chinese shipyards as they want to get LNG tankers delivered earlier,” said Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. “They seem to have no other choice as our order books are nearly full.”
“We are not that worried about the immediate impact on our competitiveness but the Chinese will soon gain more experiences and knowhow and improve their technology as they build more LNG carriers, even for domestic customers,” it added. “Then, our technology gap with them will narrow in the long term.”