Researchers at London's Clarkson shipbroking agency said that newbuilding prices plummeted again in January and would continue to fall.
The price of newbuild ships fell by 6.1 percent in January. In the price index, prices fell from 176.5 to 165.7 in January, which Clarkson says is the most dramatic drop in a while.
The number of vessel deliveries is outpacing new contracts, and January's orderbook fell by 107 vessels to 9,653 vessels (10.1 million DWT). In addition, Clarkson's boxship index dropped to below 100 for the first time since June 2004.
Though shipowners are refraining from ordering newbuilds, Clarkson said that the secondhand market would reap the benefits of the financial crisis as owners hunted for a bargain before they considered inking a new contract.
As the shortage of new contracts continues, Clarkson has added that the gap between the world's largest shipbuilding nation, Korea, and its rivals, China and Japan, is starting to diminish.
According to its figures, Korea's newbuilding order backlog at the end of 2008 was 67.8 million CGT over China's 60.7 million CGT. However, by January 31, 2009, Korea's orderbook saw a dip, to 65.9 million DWT while China's orderbooks only saw a minor decrease to 60.7 million CGT.
The gap between orderbooks in Korea and Japan is also becoming smaller.
At the end of 2008, Korea's orderbook had a lead over Japan by 37.6 million CGT, but by the end of January, the lead was only by 36.6 million CGT.
