Shipyard berths are booked into 2030 and orders keep pouring in, with more than 80% of the world's new vessel orders flowing to China. Leading the order book is only the starting point; building the most demanding ships and setting the rules of shipping are the true ticket to the age of great navigation.
On June 5, 2026, at Changxing Island in Dalian, two 306,000-deadweight-ton ultra-large crude carriers built by Hengli Heavy Industries for Greek shipowner Dynacom — the "EVROS" and the "ACHELOOS" — were floated out of the same dock simultaneously, then named and delivered on the same day. Each vessel measures 332.8 meters in length, and both were delivered at least three months ahead of their contractual deadlines. Dynacom's on-site manager Panagiotis stood on the quay and offered just one assessment of the two ships: extremely satisfied. It is hard to imagine that four years ago this was a bankrupt shipyard that had sat idle for nearly a decade. Its predecessor, STX Dalian, declared bankruptcy and liquidation in 2015, and repeated auctions failed to find a buyer. In 2022, Hengli Group took it over for 2.11 billion yuan. The rebirth of a bankrupt shipyard collided with an era in which the world is scrambling for Chinese ships.
September 29 brought another same-day flurry: COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers announced an addition of 14 60,000-ton-class multi-purpose heavy-lift vessels in one go, while CSSC Huangpu Wenchong signed another 2 container ships with Greek owner Evalend Shipping. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that in the first half of this year China's newly received shipbuilding orders reached 121.06 million deadweight tons, up 173.1% year on year — half a year surpassing any full year in history.
Orders arriving faster than shipyards can log them
Hengli Heavy Industries' order intake speed has to be measured in days. In 2025 the shipyard took on 115 new vessels for the full year, with contract value exceeding 100 billion yuan, averaging less than three days per ship. In the first half of 2026 it took on another 207 vessels: 94 tankers, 56 container ships, 49 bulk carriers, plus 8 ultra-large liquid ammonia carriers — a single-shipyard half-year order record for the industry. Over the same period it delivered 40 vessels, with more than 30 giant ships queued at the quay awaiting delivery. Underpinning these numbers are more than 80,000 shipbuilding workers in the Hengli Heavy Industries industrial park, along with 4 berths and 4 large docks. Steel plate cutting, block joining, pipeline laying and cabin commissioning — dozens of processes advance simultaneously along the Changxing Island coastline. The shipyard's delivery schedule has already been written through 2030.
The weight of the order book is clearest from repeat customers. Dynacom has cumulatively ordered 20 VLCCs at Hengli; another Greek shipping magnate, Marinakis, had his Capital Maritime sign 11 vessels in one go in February. More intriguing still, a VLCC still under construction in a Hengli dock was resold by a Greek shipowner in May this year to a customer linked to Trafigura for about $163 million, when it had been ordered in October last year at about $118 million per vessel — a paper premium of roughly $45 million in just over half a year. Even ships not yet in the water have become hard currency in the market.
Hengli's ambitions go beyond sheer numbers. On June 23, its first 93,000-cubic-meter ultra-large liquid ammonia carrier was launched. Large gas carriers have traditionally been built in docks, but this one was built on a berth and slid into the water — the world's first vessel of its kind built on a berth. Ammonia must remain liquid at minus 33 degrees Celsius, placing extremely high demands on cargo tank materials, welding and safety systems, and such ships were once the traditional turf of Japanese and South Korean yards. This is not a one-company show.
From Dalian heading south, Jingjiang in Jiangsu on the Yangtze River covers only 665 square kilometers and has 660,000 permanent residents. Yet this small city accounted for 10.9% of the global order book in 2025 — roughly one in every ten vessels under construction worldwide comes from here. At dawn on July 22, a methanol dual-fuel container ship capable of carrying 9,016 standard boxes slid slowly out of dock at New Yangzi Shipbuilding, owned by Danish shipping giant Maersk. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding deputy general manager Zhou Kewei explained on site that unlike traditional vessels burning diesel and heavy fuel oil, this ship uses new energy, and the dual-fuel design can cut multiple greenhouse gas emissions. Describing the changes of recent years, he offered an analogy: a decade ago delivering two or three ships a year was remarkable, but now deliveries come "like dumplings going into a pot." Yangzijiang's first-half revenue and profit both hit record highs, with net profit of about 5.4 billion yuan. By the end of last year, clean-energy vessels accounted for 74% of its order book. Executive Chairman and CEO Ren Letian revealed in the interim report that berths for 2029 deliveries are already near full capacity, and the company will "steadily release" its 2030 slots. In other words, placing an order now means waiting at least three to four years for delivery.
Further south, in Guangzhou, cooperation between CSSC Huangpu Wenchong and Evalend Shipping has been refreshed almost quarterly: in March, 1,800-TEU feeder container ships were signed; in June, a 2+2 order for 1,900-TEU vessels was signed jointly with CULines; in July, two more; and on September 29, two more of the same type were added. The same shipowner came back four times in just over half a year. Price can win the first order; only delivery can win the second and third.
Put these shipyards together and you see the entire industry scaling up. Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on July 23 shows that in the first half China's shipbuilding completions reached 36.5 million deadweight tons, up 51.2% year on year, accounting for 62.2% of the world total; newly received orders reached 121.06 million deadweight tons, up 173.1% year on year, accounting for 82.3% of the world total; and as of the end of June, the order book stood at 363.25 million deadweight tons, up 54.9% year on year, accounting for 71.2% of the world total. In the three mainstream ship types — bulk carriers, container ships and tankers — China's share of new orders all exceeded 80%. Clarksons Research offers an even more intuitive measure: in the first half, 1,481 new vessels worth $132.6 billion were contracted globally, equivalent to about $730 million in shipbuilding contracts signed every day. Measured in compensated gross tonnage, China took 72% and South Korea 19%. Li Yanqing, vice president of the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, described the new orders as showing an "explosive" trend and called it "remarkable progress." Global shipowners are queuing for berths, and Chinese shipbuilding stands on its highest peak ever.
A blocked strait ignites an order surge
The first spark for this wave of orders was lit by a single strait. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched joint military action against Iran, and Iran retaliated immediately. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of global oil trade, saw daily tanker transits plunge from over a hundred to single digits. Large numbers of tankers were stranded in the Gulf of Oman or diverted around the Cape of Good Hope. Voyages lengthened and capacity was frozen, sending freight rates soaring: VLCC spot rates rose from about $132,000 per day in February to more than $500,000 by mid-September. After the U.S. and Iran reached a memorandum of understanding in June, the strait technically reopened, but even by September navigation was far from back to normal. It was at this moment that veteran New York shipowner Peter Georgiopoulos made his decision. He and his partners' team had not placed a major ship order for eight years, but in the first quarter of this year they committed about $1 billion to VLCC orders. In their own words: go big or go home.
They were not alone in thinking this way. According to shipping analytics platform Signal Group, global VLCC orders so far this year have reached 217 vessels, compared with only 93 in all of 2025, with total transaction value exceeding $20 billion — a record high in at least 25 years. BIMCO statistics show that of this year's 151 new VLCC orders, 133 went to Chinese shipyards, about 88%. Veson Nautical analyst Galanopoulos believes shipowners are betting on one judgment: after Middle East supply is disrupted, long-haul crude transportation from the Atlantic to Asia will continue to grow. But attributing the entire order wave to the flames of war is not accurate. War ignited this round, but the woodpile had long been stacked.
The first reason is that ships are old. Clarksons data shows that by early 2026, 42% of the global VLCC fleet was over 15 years old, and about one-fifth was over 20 years old. Tankers generally have a design life of about 20 years, and a large number of older vessels must exit the fleet in the coming years. The second reason is that regulations are forcing fleet replacement. The International Maritime Organization's energy efficiency index and carbon intensity rating have taken effect, and older ships must undergo an annual carbon emissions "score," with poorly rated vessels finding it increasingly hard to win cargo. When ordering new ships, shipowners now generally require dual-fuel or fuel-ready designs. In the first quarter of this year, China's international market share of new green ship orders reached 80.2%. The third reason is that shipowners have money. High freight rates over recent years have significantly improved shipowners' balance sheets, and many new entrants have arrived — Clarksons estimates that more than 40% of tanker orders in the first half came from players that had not previously been involved in the segment. And because shipbuilding takes years from contract to delivery, ordering only when the market is hottest often means no good berths are left. The fourth reason is the push-and-pull of U.S. port fees. In 2025, the United States announced port fees on China-built and China-operated vessels citing the "Section 301 investigation," prompting many shipowners to wait and see; that year China's newly received orders fell about 35% year on year, while South Korea grew 8% against the trend. Only after November 10, 2025, when China and the United States simultaneously suspended reciprocal port fees for one year, did suppressed orders flow back in a concentrated wave.
So where do these orders come from? First, one clarification: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology only publishes the share of export vessels — in the first half, export ships accounted for 93.4% of China's newly received orders. But "export" does not equal "foreign shipowner," as many Chinese shipowners order through offshore companies, so the ratio cannot be directly split into "how much European and American, how much Chinese." What can reveal the structure is shipowners' investment amounts and names. Clarksons data shows Greek shipowners invested about $23.4 billion in new ships in the first half, surpassing all of 2025 in just six months and returning to first place globally; Chinese shipowners followed with about $22.4 billion. Together they accounted for about one-third of global new ship investment, with the rest scattered among shipowners in other European countries, Japan, Singapore and the Middle East. The choices of Greek shipowners are the most representative. They control about one-fifth of global merchant shipping capacity and signed 299 new vessels in the first half, of which 235 went to Chinese shipyards, about 79%, with Hengli alone taking about 36%. As early as the end of 2024, 68% of Greek shipowners' order books by deadweight tonnage was already under construction in China.
Change is also happening among "old customers." Greek shipowner Thenamaris, which previously built mainly in Japan and South Korea, this time placed its first LR2 tanker order with a Chinese private shipyard; Evalend, long a customer for gas carriers in South Korea, ordered 4 ultra-large liquid ammonia carriers at Hengli this year. Looking further out, it reads almost like a global shipping hall of fame: the world's largest container line Mediterranean Shipping Company has all 128 new ships on order placed with Chinese shipyards; France's CMA CGM placed its first new ship order in China this year at Hengli; Japan's Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha ordered 4 LNG dual-fuel car carriers at China Merchants Jinling; and Nigeria LNG ordered 3 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers at Hudong-Zhonghua. The cycle brought demand, but what determined where orders flowed was who could build, who could deliver and who could deliver reliably. Geopolitical conflict lit the fire, fleet replacement and green transition added fuel, and orders ultimately flowed to China, which offers the fastest delivery and the most complete supply chain.
Behind the orders lies a longer chain
Behind the orders of the great navigation era lies a longer chain. On September 29, COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers announced it had commissioned Dalian COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry to build 8 60,000-ton-class multi-purpose heavy-lift vessels, with a ship price not exceeding 2.624 billion yuan and delivery between 2029 and 2030; at the same time it bareboat-chartered 6 ships of the same type from four leasing companies including CITIC Financial Leasing and ICBC Financial Leasing, for about 20 years at roughly 61,000 yuan per vessel per day including tax. The company acknowledged in the announcement that based on future specialized transport demand, its heavy-lift capacity "still has a gap." Where does the gap come from? The answer lies in the cargo hold. These ships are specially designed to carry wind turbine blades, construction machinery and port cranes — the oversized items. COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers' annual report shows that in 2025 its machinery equipment volume rose 76% year on year, wind power equipment 55%, engineering equipment 73% and port machinery 150%, with advanced manufacturing cargo now accounting for more than 40%. As China's heavy equipment goes global, China's fleet must follow.
On the same day, China Merchants Energy Shipping also announced that its subsidiary had signed a 25-year long-term transport agreement for 6 ultra-large ore carriers, with a total value expected to be no less than $2.8 billion, to participate in transporting iron ore from Guinea's Simandou project. On one side is long-term cargo, on the other is shipyard capacity; Chinese shipowners and shipyards are being bound together by the same flow of goods. Demand is also transmitting upstream. Fuda Co in Guilin, Guangxi, formerly focused on automotive engine crankshafts, with customers including Yuchai and Cummins. In June this year it set up a dedicated large marine electrical crankshaft business unit; on September 17 it announced an 880 million yuan investment to build a production line for 15,000 large marine electrical crankshafts a year, 2 to 4.5 meters in length, plus a precision forging line with annual output of 20,000 pieces, with the project starting that same month. A company that made auto parts turning to marine power shows that the shipbuilding boom has reached engines and key components.
At the other end of the chain are ship registration and shipping services. On September 20, the vessel "Yuanhai Longmen" entered the registry of Hainan's Yangpu Port, becoming the 104th Yangpu-registered ship, with total capacity of Yangpu-registered vessels exceeding 9 million deadweight tons. In Guangxi, the Pinglu Canal opened to navigation on September 16, allowing Nanning to directly accommodate 5,000-ton-class vessels; just days before the opening, in the Liujing Industrial Park adjoining the canal's starting point, a new energy shipbuilding base with first-phase investment of about 700 million yuan broke ground, set to produce about 70 green vessels a year at full capacity. From shipbuilding to shipowning, to ship registration and to cargo sources — China is completing the full puzzle of a major shipping nation. As early as 2023, the fleet owned by Chinese shipowners had surpassed Greece by gross tonnage to become the world's largest; COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation's tanker fleet size also ranks first in the world. History repeatedly proves that shipbuilding centers follow manufacturing and trade centers. From the Netherlands and Britain to Japan and South Korea, every shift in the shipbuilding center has been accompanied by a reshaping of the global industrial map. In 1982, China only began building export ships to international standards; more than four decades later, 80% of global new orders flow to China. When the world's factory also becomes the world's shipyard, China's industrial economy truly enters its own age of great navigation.
Challenges remain beneath the spotlight
Yet beneath the spotlight, challenges have not diminished at all. The first is high-end ship types. LNG carriers are called the "pearl on the crown" of shipbuilding, and according to Wood Mackenzie data, South Korea still holds about two-thirds of global LNG carrier orders. South Korea's HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, under HD Hyundai, has publicly said Chinese shipyards still lag South Korea in quality and technology. But Leszczynski, research head at shipbroker Banchero Costa, offers a different judgment: Chinese shipyards' build quality is already close to South Korea's, while their quotations are more competitive. The gap is narrowing, but it has not disappeared.
The second is that being a shipbuilding power does not equal being a shipping power. Route networks, port services, ship insurance and financing, maritime arbitration and bunkering — these links that determine shipping pricing power remain deeply accumulated in established shipping centers such as London and Singapore. Ranking first in orders does not automatically translate into ranking first in rules. The third is the cycle. Shipbuilding is a classic highly cyclical industry; after the revelry before 2008 came a decade-long winter, and STX Dalian itself was a casualty of that round. At present, the VLCC order book as a share of the existing fleet has risen from about 12% a year ago to 33%, and a large number of new ships will be delivered in concentrated fashion from 2028 to 2030. Pressure inside shipyards is also accumulating: the fuller the order book, the tighter recruitment, steel, equipment arrivals and quality control become, and the green fuel pathway has yet to be finalized.
Finally, geopolitics. The U.S. suspension of port fees expires in early November, leaving just over a month from today. In late September, several industry organizations including the National Retail Federation jointly called for an extension of the suspension, but as of now there is no conclusion. At the same time, the United States is working with South Korea and Japan to revitalize its own shipbuilding industry. If the rules change, the direction of orders may change with them.
Signals of cooling have already appeared. Clarksons data shows that in August global new ship orders fell 23.7% year on year, while China's share rose to 85.4%. Looking ahead, Chinese shipyards' berths are already booked into 2029 and 2030, and the next three years will see a peak in deliveries, making the position of "world's top shipbuilder" hard to shake in the short term; new orders, however, are likely to retreat from their highs, and the market will shift from "grabbing berths" back to "comparing quality." The next stage of competition is no longer just about who receives more orders, but about who can stand firm in high-end ship types such as LNG carriers and cruise ships, who can strengthen engines and core supporting industries, and who can gain a voice in green fuel standards and shipping rules. Ranking first in orders is only the starting point; building the most demanding ships and setting the rules of shipping are the true ticket to the age of great navigation.
On Changxing Island in June, two giant vessels sailed side by side away from the quay toward the open ocean. Four years ago, this was still a stalled shipyard. For Chinese shipbuilding, the best era has arrived; and the true voyage has only just begun.
Risk warning and disclaimer: Markets carry risk, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions in this article fit their particular circumstances. Any investment made on this basis is at the user's own risk.
Comments