Chinese shipbuilding industry

PUFF_DRAGON said:

That's where you're wrong. The entire South Korean navy as we speak masses under 200,000 tons. The PLAN commissions more than that in tons of warships in a single year IIRC.

Also the key bottleneck in shipbuilding isn't raw material for hulls, it's critical industrial components like electronics and engines and sensors that also require skilled craftsmen to install, assemble, and build.

Reservation of yard space for the military is more likely the PLAN grabbing skilled workers away from the commercial yards, which would screw up their build pipelines quite a bit.

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If new military orders are what is holding back Chinese shipbuilders from winning bids, then we're looking at yet another acceleration in Chinese naval shipbuilding.

That shouldn't be a big surprise given the continued downward trend in US-China relations and the increase in nuclear missiles silos under construction.

Design of this ship is similar to the barracks ships 88 and 89

An information sheet on the recently delivered oceanic research vessel Zhong Shan Da Xue.

Orthan said:

Why dont you provide an answer instead of complaining about the question?


I find that hard to believe thats the reason of chinese shipyards getting suspassed by korean ones. China doesnt build that many military ships. And korean shipyards also build military ships.

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In terms of labour size and amount of resources available, Chinese shipyards can expand a lot more and accommodate more military ships if necessarily, without affecting commercial shipbuilding.

Wallenius Lines signs up with CIMC Raffles for six car carriers, 6,500 CEU and LNG powered. They will be flying the Swedish flag after delivery.





Guangxi VLCC oil terminal begins operation. This can handle 300,000 DWT tanker and 100,000 DWT tanker at the same time.

What makes China's shipbuilding lose to South Korea's? For a country 20 times smaller I thought it wouldn't even be close

sndef888 said:

What makes China's shipbuilding lose to South Korea's? For a country 20 times smaller I thought it wouldn't even be close

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In what way do you mean lose?
South Korean yards are better at the higher end stuff like FPSO or FLNG because their labor force does have better quality training on certain higher end metallurgy stuff. But when it comes to bread and butter ship building no one comes close to China...
Anything that the Chinese get good at, other countries just stops being competitive.
Korean yards tend to be ruthlessly efficient, and have works piled way ahead. When the engineering is good and on time, it works a treat. When the engineering is poor, which is typical especially of fast tracked or first of class then they aren't as accommodating and throw you to the back of the line if you miss your window. The Chinese are far more accommodating and bend over backwards to help. (But will charge for it!) They aren't nearly as efficient as the Koreans, and spend alot of time doing things the long way, so have to work longer to achieve the same result, but they get there all the same. The same inertia with technology also applies in China too. Examples say using phased array in NDT in lieu of xray, only really taken on in the cooec yards but widespread in the US and Korea.

Godzilla said:

In what way do you mean lose?
South Korean yards are better at the higher end stuff like FPSO or FLNG because their labor force does have better quality training on certain higher end metallurgy stuff. But when it comes to bread and butter ship building no one comes close to China...
Anything that the Chinese get good at, other countries just stops being competitive.
Korean yards tend to be ruthlessly efficient, and have works piled way ahead. When the engineering is good and on time, it works a treat. When the engineering is poor, which is typical especially of fast tracked or first of class then they aren't as accommodating and throw you to the back of the line if you miss your window. The Chinese are far more accommodating and bend over backwards to help. (But will charge for it!) They aren't nearly as efficient as the Koreans, and spend alot of time doing things the long way, so have to work longer to achieve the same result, but they get there all the same. The same inertia with technology also applies in China too. Examples say using phased array in NDT in lieu of xray, only really taken on in the cooec yards but widespread in the US and Korea.

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I am referring to the fact that SK's shipyard orders exceeded that of China Q1 and could possibly continue for the year

South Korea overtook China to become the world's largest shipbuilder in the first quarter of 2021 in terms of new orders, despite that China has led global ship production in all but one year since 2012.

Measured in Compensated Gross Tonnage (CGT) -- a gauge of shipbuilding capacity by weighing more sophisticated ships and less to easier-to-build ships -- South Korean shipyards inked contracts of 5.32 million CGT during the first quarter, surpassing Chinese peers' 4.26 million CGT, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

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Even before this news China and SK were pretty even, not like the dominance China has in many other industries.

sndef888 said:

I am referring to the fact that SK's shipyard orders exceeded that of China Q1 and could possibly continue for the year

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Even before this news China and SK were pretty even, not like the dominance China has in many other industries.

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Hmm.. I thought I answered it... South Korean yards gets more orders of more complex ships like LNG carriers / FLNG ships which have significantly more manhours to be earned compared to bulk container /oil tankers that Chinese yard get at the moment. We are using cgt here not total tonnage, so those higher manhours weigh in significantly....

sndef888 said:

I am referring to the fact that SK's shipyard orders exceeded that of China Q1 and could possibly continue for the year

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Even before this news China and SK were pretty even, not like the dominance China has in many other industries.

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The GT article notes that this is based on Compensated Gross Tonnage (CGT) instead of Gross Tonnage (GT). CGT multiplies the GT of each ship produced by a coefficient based on the type and size of ship. The conversion formula from GT to CGT is: CGT = A * (GT^B).


In the article it notes that Chinese shipyards have been focused on the construction of oil tankers, bulk carriers and container ships. It also notes the SK shipyards have an advantage in LNG ship construction.

Comparison using 10,000 GT:
Oil Tankers (Double Hull) CGT = 48 * (10000)^0.57 = 9146
Bulk Carriers CGT = 29 * (10000)^0.61 = 7987
Full Container CGT = 19 * (10000)^0.68 = 9971
LNG Carriers CGT = 32 * (10000)^0.68 = 16793
LPG Carriers CGT = 62 * (10000)^0.57 = 11813

If a Chinese shipyard constructed 20,000 tonnes weight for a bulk carrier than it would count for less than 10,000 tonnes weight constructed for a LNG carrier.

Here is Gross Tonnage ship production for comparison:
Chinese ship production by Gross Tonnage has held fairly steady at 23,000,000 tonnes per year since 2017.

The article also notes that rising steel prices are a major concern. Prices of raw materials likely affect less complex ships with lower price margins more. In July 2020 the Shanghai steel futures were trading at ~3,700 CNY per ton. Right now July 2021 Shanghai steel futures are trading at ~4900 CNY per ton. The peak was ~5960 CNY per ton in May 2020. No shipyard wants to build ships at a loss.

Higher steel prices may not be all bad. It provides a strong incentive for shipyards to cut costs, improve efficiency and move up the value-added manufacturing chain. Looking at it from a national perspective, higher steel prices can help firms determine which products won't be economically viable. i.e. Would you rather spend the steel constructing ships or new wind turbines? A wind turbine is 71% - 79% steel by mass. In 2020 China had 282,650 MW of wind power capacity, an increase of 72,600 MW from 2019. For comparison South Korea had 1,600 MW of wind capacity in November 2020.