The two Chinese shipyards that were reported to have won CMA-CGM’s order for nine 22,000 TEU vessels have confirmed that they’ve received a letter of intent, according to China Daily.
Shanghai-based shipyards Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding have achieved a great win for China as the country now has a larger share of the global market than its ship-building rival South Korea.
It is the first time that Chinese shipyards have topped their South Korean counterparts, taking the deal from South Korea’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries — a favourite to win the contract.
State-run China State Shipbuilding Corporation owns both Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding.
Data from Beijing-based China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry shows that shipbuilders in China received orders for new vessels with a collective capacity of 8.14 million dead weight metric tons in the first half of 2017, accounting for 31.4% of the global market, while South Korea's shipbuilding industry held a 30.6% share.
In an interview with China Daily, Dong Liwan, a shipbuilding industry researcher at Shanghai Maritime University, said: "The 22,000 TEU-containership will become the world's largest of its kind once completed, outsizing the current leader, a 21,413-TEU containership made in South Korea (pictured above).
“It really is an industrial breakthrough of decades.”
Zhang Xueling, a researcher at the Shanghai Ship and Shipping Research Institute, has predicted that each ship will cost $160 million to build and the service life can reach 25 to 30 years.
CMA-CGM is yet to confirm the deal.
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