Adding new cargo-carrying capacity has become more popular again. Over the past five years an upwards trend in the world merchant ship fleet’s newbuilding orderbook has unfolded. Orders for bulk carriers, tankers, container ships, gas carriers and other ship types together have expanded greatly. What has driven this acceleration?
A depressed newbuilding orderbook was recorded five years ago, when the world deadweight total for merchant ships fell to its lowest point since seventeen years earlier. At the end of 2020, the volume was equivalent to under 9% of the existing fleet. After the ordering growth seen in recent years, the end-2025 total doubled to 18% of a much larger existing fleet.
But the pattern has not been uniform among segments over this period. Also, within each of the main ship type categories, there were large upwards and downwards variations in investors’ collective decisions on placing orders from year to year, amid changing perceptions about influences and future events. In 2025 after a huge upturn seen in the previous twelve months, moderating influences emerged and the annual total fell. Nevertheless, this volume still exceeded new vessels delivered from shipbuilders’ yards, resulting in fleet orderbooks continuing to rise as a percentage of the existing tonnage operating.
Ordering enthusiasm
Notable changes in investors’ attitudes have been reflected in the past five years’ ordering totals, within all the ship type categories. Especially vigorous activity has been seen in the container and gas carrier segments, although last year’s totals in both segments were well below the previous year’s volumes. Tanker ordering has revived in the past three years. In the bulk carrier segment activity fluctuated.
Looking at these patterns in more detail, container ship orders, expressed in deadweight tonnes (dwt) for comparison although the twenty-foot-equivalent unit (or teu) is the usual measurement, have been remarkably high. Following an upsurge in 2021 orders receded over two years but then accelerated in 2024 and 2025, when 52m dwt and 54m dwt respectively was seen, according to calculations by Clarksons Research.
Gas carrier (liquefied natural gas LNG and liquefied petroleum gas LPG) ordering has been another feature in the past five years. After an upsurge in 2021 and 2022, the inflow moderated before resurging to over 15m dwt in 2024. But last year’s volume saw an abrupt fall to a much lower 5m dwt.
Newbuilding tanker orders have reflected a strong revival of interest in the past few years. After a an extended period when volumes were relatively modest, a further weakening to about 11m dwt was recorded in 2022. A dramatic turnaround in owners’ attitudes then unfolded, with annual totals of 38m, 61m and 42m dwt in the three years 2023 to 2025. Revived ordering of the biggest tankers in the very large crude carrier (vlcc) category has been particularly prominent in the past couple of years.
Within the bulk carrier segment, activity has been more prosaic, albeit varying from year to year. After several years when annual newbuilding contracts volumes agreed were relatively subdued, the total surged in 2021 to 52m dwt and has averaged 49m dwt in the past four years, including an annual reduction from a recent peak of 63m dwt in 2024 to 44m dwt in 2025.
The patterns observed have led to big differences among ship-type segments in the orderbook when calculated as a percentage of the existing fleet. This relationship is often focused upon as a rough indication of future fleet enlargement and, together with ideas about how much of the existing fleet is likely to be scrapped, sometimes indicates possible over-capacity emerging.
At the beginning of 2026, relatively high newbuilding orderbooks in the gas carrier and container ship categories resulted in these being equivalent to about 38% and 32% of existing deadweight tonnage respectively. For tankers and bulk carriers the figures were much lower at 17% and 12% respectively. Percentages as high as 30-40% are not necessarily implying over-capacity but may be a reason for such expectations, unless high scrapping or strong demand growth, or both, can be reliably expected to contribute to supporting a balanced freight market.
Future fleet impact
A crucial aspect for market players evaluating the significance is how the newbuilding orderbook’s timing profile will affect the fleet’s growth over the months and years ahead. Scheduled timing of deliveries, and the spread over (typically) the next two or three years, sometimes a longer period, provides an indication of future capacity additions. Scrapping predictions for the existing fleet facilitate an assessment of the net fleet expansion foreseeable. How the entire fleet will be employed (more or less efficiently), the ‘productivity factor’, is another aspect.
Looking at the dispersion of current orders, about 29% of the 447m dwt world merchant ship fleet newbuildings total is expected to be delivered in 2026 (128m dwt), based on Clarksons Research calculations. In following years, about 32% is expected in 2027 (143m dwt) and the remaining 39% (175m dwt) in 2028 and later. These volumes are much higher than actual deliveries seen in recent years, including 97m dwt during 2025 and 89m dwt in the previous twelve months.
Ship deliveries this year will reflect what has already been ordered for completion in the period, because most global shipbuilding yard capacity has been allocated for those contracts. For deliveries from 2027 onwards there is less certainty. More ordering, which is difficult to predict, could boost the present totals, although the evident tightening of shipyard capacity resulting from recent heavy contracting activity patterns is likely to limit flows of additional new contracts.
Among individual ship type segments the envisaged pattern in 2026 varies. Tanker newbuilding deliveries estimated at 37m dwt are over 80% higher than seen last year. Gas carrier deliveries of 13m dwt this year may be two-fifths higher. The bulk carrier fleet may see an upturn of about a fifth, to 43m dwt. By contrast, in the other main segment, a lower volume is foreseen. Container ship deliveries estimated at 18m dwt in 2026 represent a reduction of about a quarter from last year’s volume.
So the expectations – mostly upwards – for this year’s changes in newbuilding delivery volumes vary widely. In 2027, current very provisional indications suggest that container ship deliveries are likely to surge, perhaps rising by 75% compared with this year, while tankers see further growth of around a third. In the gas carrier segment higher deliveries seem likely and bulkers could experience a modest increase.
Freight market implications
How closely these newbuilding delivery volumes will be related to growth in fleet deadweight capacity depends upon what assumptions are included about activity in the recycling market. In recent years global sales of merchant ships to scrap yards have been depressed to minimal levels, resulting in newbuilding delivery totals implying (almost) net fleet expansion. Examining prospects for the years ahead, despite annual scrapping volumes which are expected to increase, perhaps greatly, there is limited confidence in precise forecasts.
Implications contributing to a view of the global merchant ship demand/supply balance, and the freight market, are also accompanied by an essential assessment of the vessel demand outlook. Prospects for global trade in the range of cargoes carried by the fleet differ. Growth in some commodity movements seems more likely to be achievable than in others, and elsewhere declining trends are predictable. The outlook for the voyage distances element of tonne-mile ship demand is often difficult to foresee, especially when unforeseeable geopolitical influences affecting trade and trade routes may be prevalent, as seen in recent years.
Uncertainty about the trend of seaborne trade movements is particularly focused on energy commodities, amid intentions to reduce or eliminate consumption of fossil fuels, comprising about two-fifths of all world seaborne trade. Longer-term expectations for oil and coal trade tend to be negative, reflecting the energy transition involving decarbonisation and the switch towards renewable energy sources. Reductions in fossil fuel trades, albeit at an unknown pace, have obvious implications for tanker and bulk carrier fleet capacity required over the lifetime of new ships recently ordered or those which potentially could be ordered in the period ahead.
For gas carriers, especially those carrying LNG, trade expansion prospects are still favourable and – together with long-term freight contracts agreed – largely explain the recent pace of ordering new tonnage. Optimism about growth in several other commodity trade categories is also prominent. Newbuilding orders often can be justified also by clear signs of current or eventual fleet renewal pressures, replacing large volumes of tonnage that is older, or less efficient.
Owners’ motivations
Many owners have decided collectively that a huge amount of new capacity in the world merchant ship fleet will be needed in future years. An influence has been obvious signs of an ageing fleet, a large part of which is approaching maximum life expectancy and will require replacement with new tonnage in the years ahead. Tightening regulations governing carbon emissions have added pressure to arrange for new compliant ships to be built.
Rising global shipbuilding prices over recent years, and signs of likely constraints on shipbuilding capacity available after sustained ordering activity, appear to have acted as an incentive for owners to place more newbuilding orders. While the upwards pressure on prices eased last year and price levels partially retreated as a general trend, diminishing availability of building slots for some vessel sizes and types continued to be seen. This apparently incentivised, at least partly, extra new orders and also pushed the scheduled deliveries of many of these further into the future, from 2028 onwards.
Overshadowing the standard ‘normal’ influences contributing to newbuilding order decisions, what variety of capability for using an alternative fuel in a new ship has become an existential puzzle. The decarbonisation process, reducing or eliminating carbon emissions, is having a profound impact, reinforced by international and regional regulatory imperatives. Some clarity on alternative fuels and necessary propulsion technology has evolved over the past few years. But choosing which alternative to adopt in a newbuilding order is not straightforward, especially because many fuels are potentially uneconomical to use.
Last year almost a third (measured by tonnage) of merchant ship newbuildings delivered into the world fleet was identified as ‘alternative fuel capable’, a doubling of the proportion recorded three years earlier. This portion implies that two-thirds of 2025 newbuilding deliveries were not capable of using an alternative fuel. For future deliveries, a higher proportion of capable tonnage is envisaged. Nevertheless many investors remain reluctant to embrace any of the currently most favoured alternatives including LNG (perhaps an interim solution), methanol, LPG, and also ammonia or biofuels. Several of these have prominent drawbacks awaiting more development and practical experience.
A wider perspective identifies a persisting historical feature of the newbuilding market: fluctuations in ordering within individual segments from year to year, and differing patterns of ordering among the various segments over time, reflecting changing circumstances. The evolving circumstances are partly a result of ongoing trends and latest developments (especially if these are viewed as having significant implications for the future). Market players’ expectations of freight market trends in the short- and longer-term future are often a direct influential element.
Despite multiple imponderables affecting the newbuilding market, owners have demonstrated willingness in the past several years to add substantial capacity. After last year’s decrease in the global newbuilding orders intake from the previous year’s high level, it seems possible that a further reduction in the annual volume of incoming new orders will occur during 2026. But predictions for this metric at the beginning of the period are often not very reliable. What the past three years have demonstrated (annual new orders averaging almost 50% above those of the previous three years) is that there is an appetite for fleet renewal and expansion.
Source: Prepared for HSNW by Richard Scott FICS, managing director, Bulk Shipping Analysis
