NORWEGIAN shipyards have seen a significant rise in vessel orders, particularly from the cruise sector. Nine vessel orders have been placed at Norwegian yards, including Ulstein, Vard and Kleven, in the first quarter of 2017 according to Tellef Tellefsen, Head of Shipping at Export Credit Norway.
Many of the country’s yards had been struggling due to low oil prices leading to a significant drop in orders for offshore vessels, which many of the yards had developed a niche in.
For Norway the ability to win cruise ship orders is a significant development, considering a few years back these orders would have ended up at other European yards, said Tellefsen, adding that these are seen as big orders for big vessels. However he puts the sudden interest in building cruise ships in Norway as simple economic luck.
With a boom in cruise tourism in recent years there has been a rush of orders by cruise operators, with 74 vessels being ordered from European shipyards over the last year, mostly from established yards with long experience in building passenger and cruise vessels, such as those in France, Italy, Germany, and Finland.
With the backlog building up, cruise ship orders have come to Norwegian yards which has the capacity following a dwindling of orders for offshore vessels which they have been heavily focused on in recent years, Additionally like the offshore vessels, cruise ships are seen as complex vessels to build.
However Chinese shipyards, also struggling with low orderbooks, have begun to show an interest in picking up cruise ship orders, China has historically not been well involved in the cruise sector as a shipbuilding nation, Tellefsen said this will be interesting to watch, particularly as the cruise industry is the last sector for Asia to take on.
Despite the challenges, Tellefsen said there remains a lot of optimism in the Norwegian shipbuilding sector abut picking up new cruise vessel orders.
Picture of Vard’s cruise ship for Hapag Lloyd courtesy of Vard
Fathom-news.com
editor@fathom-news.com
