Chinese shipbuilding industry

Quite a good article on LNG shipbuilding this one:

Below is market share (from Clarkson) for China and Korea. Korea in dark blue.

Last year was good for K-LNG.

Wrought said:

Shipping is not the same as shipbuilding; ports are not the same as shipyards.

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I agree, but shipping is intimately linked to shipbuilding. More shipping requirement equates more shipbuilding demand, domestic shipping ownership equates power to place orders, etc. etc. Anyways, moderator is the king, so they can decide if this should or shouldn't belong here.

Wrought said:

Shipping is not the same as shipbuilding; ports are not the same as shipyards.

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Exactly. Singapore is #2 in container traffic (mostly transshipments), yet only #10 in gross tonnage shipbuilding. Traffic is not the same as manufacturing, esp. for transshipments hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, etc ... with almost non-existent shipbuilding at scale.

Then again, this is the same guy who thinks Tokyo Electric manufactures "Lithography Machines", so he has a history of conflating adjacencies and mixing basic definition.

Hubei 枝江 shipyard has started work on 7 130m electric bulk carriers w/ max cargo capacity of 10000t. it's actually quite a bit of battery per electric ship, 20MW

I am watching this korean shipbuilding video, centered around Chinese shipbuilding.


Some interesting observations (directly from video subtitles according to koreans, not my own spin):

1. Zhoushan Changhong became the largest shipyard for container ship orders last year. 46 orders for 6 billion USD value.
2. Hengli which acquired STX Dalian and rebuilt a shipyard received 120 ship orders for 10 billion USD value last year.
3. At hengli 70% of welding, 60% of painting, 45% of assembly done by robots.
4. Korean shipbuilding executives are going on tour of new Chinese facilities and getting amazed. Specially with robotics usage in non-conventional areas like painting and assembly. (Apparently welding for a long time was automated in Korea too) Bringing ideas from China to setup automation in these areas to Korea.
5. private shiyards in china are leading the way. They are more agile. Taking a big gamble with order intake, have rapidly expanded capacity. If they are able to deliver, will make them, but if in a hurry unable to or have accidents, will break them.
6. In container ships, Chinese prices were 5% lower than Koreans, not a lot of difference, which could have been compensated with technology, but given that large European companies are now placing orders in China, it suggests that the perception is that the quality difference is not worth the 5% price difference.
7. Current situation reminiscent of Japan and Korea 20 years back when Korea was competing with Japan
8. If the new generation of private Chinese shipyards (with cutting edge tech) are able to smoothly handle the orders, would be frightening for koreans later. Right now, the new automation might even lead to uneveness in quality, but once the automation stabilizes, it could cost and bring more efficiencies.
9. 4 VLCCs of 300,000 tonnes were simultaneously launched recenlty from Hengli
10. Chinese expansion speed is scary, Korea has not been able to expand so fast. It takes 3 years in Korea to build a factory (confused, should be factory or shipyard, but that's what in the subtitles) takes half that time in China. Can't find people in Korea. Chinese government providing subsidized finance.
11. Military market is a huge positive and a backup plan in case China becomes more competitive. Can serve Western market too.

I got video here of the largest shipbuilding assembly plant in Huabei part of China. The shipyards continue to improve in everything to improve production flow & replacing w/ domestic suppliers (including software). All of this has not only cut cost & increased supply line security, but also sped up delivery time & iteration time.

See below for YTL's absolutely massive 5-axis CNC processing stations to produce large propellers.


The scale of the work stations to produce components for large cargo ships is quite mind boggling.

more battery electric ship. this is for tour routes to Macau. Can carry 398 pax. they have more and more of these ships now.

Among first LNG carrier orders of the year for China.

I have realized hudong zhonghua doesn't have a lot of capacity to build LNG carriers. Their delivery timeline is already stretching to 2029-30.



4 more from PIL, (even split of total orders among Korea and China)

Hengli is having another expansion. On track to become the largest shipyard in the world!!

jli88 said:

I am watching this korean shipbuilding video, centered around Chinese shipbuilding.

Some interesting observations (directly from video subtitles according to koreans, not my own spin):

1. Zhoushan Changhong became the largest shipyard for container ship orders last year. 46 orders for 6 billion USD value.
2. Hengli which acquired STX Dalian and rebuilt a shipyard received 120 ship orders for 10 billion USD value last year.
3. At hengli 70% of welding, 60% of painting, 45% of assembly done by robots.
4. Korean shipbuilding executives are going on tour of new Chinese facilities and getting amazed. Specially with robotics usage in non-conventional areas like painting and assembly. (Apparently welding for a long time was automated in Korea too) Bringing ideas from China to setup automation in these areas to Korea.
5. private shiyards in china are leading the way. They are more agile. Taking a big gamble with order intake, have rapidly expanded capacity. If they are able to deliver, will make them, but if in a hurry unable to or have accidents, will break them.
6. In container ships, Chinese prices were 5% lower than Koreans, not a lot of difference, which could have been compensated with technology, but given that large European companies are now placing orders in China, it suggests that the perception is that the quality difference is not worth the 5% price difference.
7. Current situation reminiscent of Japan and Korea 20 years back when Korea was competing with Japan
8. If the new generation of private Chinese shipyards (with cutting edge tech) are able to smoothly handle the orders, would be frightening for koreans later. Right now, the new automation might even lead to uneveness in quality, but once the automation stabilizes, it could cost and bring more efficiencies.
9. 4 VLCCs of 300,000 tonnes were simultaneously launched recenlty from Hengli
10. Chinese expansion speed is scary, Korea has not been able to expand so fast. It takes 3 years in Korea to build a factory (confused, should be factory or shipyard, but that's what in the subtitles) takes half that time in China. Can't find people in Korea. Chinese government providing subsidized finance.
11. Military market is a huge positive and a backup plan in case China becomes more competitive. Can serve Western market too.

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I think Hengli is trying to put in two 2000ton gantries in the dry dock. This is scary lol, think ~3000 ton modules going in. Dry dock time is gonna shrink significantly.

Its not just the things you can see. Robotics in welding and logistics is impressive and all, the scary part is in the AI augmentation. The productivity gains from AI helping from project management, inventory management, resource/labor allocation, inspection augmentation is absolutely staggering. Paperwork is no longer a bitch especially when alot of them run digital twins for these works. Everyone else is all talk or power point warriors, at best with a few items implemented here and there. Some of these Chinese yards have whole shitload of these integrated in the process for couple of years and ironing out kinks in real world environments. We aint seeing nothing yet!

jli88 said:

Hengli is having another expansion. On track to become the largest shipyard in the world!!

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It’s a private shipbuilder and not part of CSSC?