The current shipping price in the global shipping market is gradually falling. Since May 2022, the trend of Baltic dry bulk index has gradually declined, and its lowest point has even been lower than the value of any period of the whole year of 2021. Compared with the highest point in 2021, has fallen by about 60% so far.
According to China Water Transportation Network, the FBX index released by the Baltic Shipping Exchange shows that as of September 26, the average shipping price of FBX containers was US$4,029, which has fallen 63.8% from the historical high in September last year. Among them, the freight rates of China/ Far East to North America's west coast routes fell by 85.7% compared with the highest freight level last year. In addition, the Shanghai Export Container Freight Index (SCFI) fell below the 2,000-point level, falling by 16 consecutive weeks, down more than half from the historical high at the beginning of the year.
At such an opportunity, there is a kind of shipping ship that is rising against the trend.
According to Beijing News , as of October 20, data from the Polish Exchange showed that the highest daily rental level of LNG transport ships in the spot market has reached as high as US$450,000 per day, and the highest daily rental level of LNG transport ships in the Atlantic market reported by SparkCommodities is also as high as US$425,000 per day, which is further improved compared with previous years. Overall, since the beginning of this year, the average rental level of LNG transport ships has increased by more than 500%.
price soared, but LNG shipping is hard to find, and even a "sky-high" lease has occurred. So what exactly is LNG shipping?
Large-sized energy takeaway
LNG is the abbreviation of liquefied natural gas (Liquefied Natural Gas). Simply put, it is to cool the gaseous natural gas to -162℃ to condense into a liquid, which is the liquefied gas we usually talk about. LNG shipping, as the name suggests, is to send LNG to various places through shipping.
In fact, when it comes to natural gas, we may often not care much about liquefied gas. In fact, China is also a major consumer of liquefied gas. According to the "China Mineral Resources Report" released by the Ministry of Natural Resources, in 2021, coal consumption accounted for 56.0% of the total primary energy consumption, oil accounted for 18.5%, and natural gas ranked third, accounting for 8.9%.
Carefully take a look at some data related to China's natural gas: In 2021, the annual output will be 207.5 billion cubic meters, and the annual apparent consumption of natural gas is 372.6 billion cubic meters; the annual imported natural gas is 168 billion cubic meters, of which the pipeline gas import is 59.1 billion cubic meters and the LNG import is 108.9 billion cubic meters.
For example, self-producing is equivalent to cooking by yourself, and importing is equivalent to eating takeaway. From the data just now, we can see that when Chinese people use natural gas, they "cook their own dishes" a little more, but they also have a lot of times "order takeaway", but the proportion is basically balanced and relatively healthy. But one key point here is that the amount of natural gas imported through liquefied gas is large, about half of the total output.
and imported liquefied gas is the least LNG ship . However, the number of LNG ships is not large. According to financial data, as of the end of June 2022, there were a total of 696 LNG ships around the world, of which about 80% were regular ships , and they could not engage in spot market transportation in the short term.
In addition, LNG ships are very difficult to manufacture and are known as the most difficult civilian ship to build. For a long time, the industry has called large LNG ships together with aircraft carrier and luxury cruise ships, and is called the "three pearls" in the crown of the global shipbuilding industry. As a delivery carrier for large takeaways, LNG ships must maintain a low temperature of -162℃ for tens of thousands of tons of liquefied gas and prevent leakage of liquefied gas. Because once a leakage occurs, natural gas will explode in an instant. The explosion power of a ship of natural gas is equivalent to dozens of atomic bombs explode at the same time, which is extremely powerful.
Therefore, LNG ships need to transport over long distances so that the liquefied tanks are kept low and sealed. LNG ships can be said to be one of the world's takeaway delivery tools that pursue extreme safety the most.
History has always been the leader in controlling LNG ship manufacturing technology and market, and has almost monopolized all technologies and has a market share of more than 90%. However, this incident has been broken in recent years.
In the past, China's LNG ships were still unknown worldwide, However, in 2021, China's global market share of newly built LNG ships reached 10%, and it expanded rapidly to 25% in 2022. In 2022, the number of orders received by Hudong Zhonghua is even almost the same as the number of orders received by Daewoo Shipbuilding, the second largest shipbuilder in South Korea, and is already at the forefront of the world.
As of August 2022, among the 111 new LNG ship orders worldwide, South Korean manufacturers received 83 orders, while Chinese manufacturers received the remaining 28 orders, making them the only LNG ship manufacturer in the world and set a record of best order acceptance in history.
Behind the hot orders
Many people believe that local international conflicts have forced a shortage of energy supply, so LNG ship orders are booming, and rental prices are also rising. The view of
is too simple. In this way, almost everything can be explained by "local conflict". Besides, why are LNG ships, not cargo ships with other energy sources? Even if the orders are full now, LNG ships cannot deliver goods immediately, and the situation of energy shortage and overwhelming cannot be alleviated. So what are the hidden reasons behind the hot LNG shipping market?
We can first see who is ordering the LNG ship.
According to the International Shipbuilding Network, on June 22, 2022, Samsung Heavy Industry announced that it had signed a construction contract for 12 174,000 cubic meters LNG ships with a ship owner in a Bermuda area, with a total contract of about US$2.5 billion. This is also the largest single new ship construction contract in the history of the world's shipbuilding industry. At the same time, Samsung Heavy Industry also stated that it had signed a construction contract for 2 174,000 cubic meters LNG ships with ship owners in Africa. industry insiders speculate that the construction orders for the 14 large LNG ships received this time may be related to the Qatar LNG project.
According to Xinhua News Agency , Hudong Zhonghua, a subsidiary of China Shipbuilding Group, has obtained an order for 11 LNG ships in Qatar's "Hundred Ships Construction Plan". Judging from the mutual confirmation of various news, Qatar is estimated to be the largest buyer of LNG ships in 2022.
From the perspective of energy suppliers, Qatar is actually one of the world's most important producers. Data released by the Qatar National Bureau of Statistics shows that the total export volume in 2021 will reach 317.4 billion Qatar Riyals (about 585.13 billion yuan), and the trade surplus of is 2215.5 billion riyals (about 397.27 billion yuan), and the year-on-year increase of 130.7%, and the export volume of natural gas and oil accounts for about 80% of its total export volume.
In fact, Qatar is not the largest exporter of LNG, and the largest exporter in 2021 is Australia. However, in August 2022, the Australian federal government said that it is necessary for LNG to restrict exports to cope with the power and gas crisis. Under this opportunity, Qatar takes advantage of the opportunity to increase production and is expected to once again enhance LNG's position in the world market.
ending
Of course, many people think that the price of LNG ships made in China is cheaper than that of South Korea, and Chinese manufacturers have received a large number of orders through "in-collecting". However, according to Clarkson's shipping intelligence network database, the price of each ship built by Samsung Heavy Industry is US$152 million, and the price of each new ship built by Jiangnan Shipbuilding and Hudong Zhonghua is US$145 million. In fact, the price difference between is not too big.
Chinese manufacturers catch up at the technical level, which is indeed the reason why large customers choose Chinese shipyards. However, this time, the orders for LNG transport ships have a very close relationship with the expansion of production by major customers.
LNG ship is one of the strongest delivery tools for energy takeaway. Takeout has now become popular from buying groceries to buying medicines, and energy takeout will of course become popular. Assuming that the market is gone, you can still survive if you can order takeout. This is indeed a very interesting phenomenon. If you dare to think about it a little more, if the price of energy takeaway becomes lower, it will become LNG "fresh food delivery". If the price of LNG shipping has an advantage over pipeline transportation, then takeaway may really become the mainstream. The future of LNG shipping is still worth looking forward to.
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