A new round of shipbuilding in the container-line sector may be underway. Hapag-Lloyd may be close to order six new 22,000 TEU vessels, Wall Street Journal reports, with Yang Ming and Cosco Shipping also potentially about to add orders. The new vessels would add 7.8% to Hapag-Lloyd’s existing capacity, Panjiva analysis of Alphaliner data shows.

The renewed focus on building new capacity may raise concerns about market pricing discipline, as flagged in Panjiva’s research of May 31, though it may in part be replacement capacity ahead of the need to change fuelling strategies in 2020. Hapag-Lloyd has also had effectively no new-build plans since its takeover of UASC.

There’s also evidence of new vessel orders picking up across the industry. For example orders taken by Chinese shipyards rose 19.1% year over year in the three months to May 31, Panjiva analysis of CANSI shows, while new build deliveries only increased by 2.6%.

Chart segments change in Chinese shipyards’ orderbooks by deliveries and orders. Calculations based on CANSI data.  Source: Panjiva

Those new vessels will take some time to make their way into the fleet however, reducing the near-term risk for shipping rates. Indeed, Panjiva analysis of government data from China, Japan and South Korea show exports by the shipping industry fell by 20.8% year over year in May after a 1.7% slide in the prior three months.

That’s largely been down to lower shipments from China which fell 51.7% in May. There’s signs of a sustained pickup in orders from Japan – which rose 23.9% in the three months to May 31 – and South Korea, which climbed 31.5% though the industry is notoriously volatile on a short-term basis.

Chart segments exports by the shipping industry by origin on a monthly and three-month average basis. Calculations based on China General Customs Administration, Japan’s Ministry of Finance and South Korea Ministry of Trade and Industry data.  Source: Panjiva