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Supply snags for lubricants and paint caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran are hitting shipbuilding and threatening businesses with a cost squeeze at a time of historical order backlogs, Japanese yards have warned.
Imabari Shipbuilding, Japan’s largest shipbuilder, warned last week that rising costs and tightening availability of materials derived from petroleum were already complicating construction of new vessels.
“Starting with marine equipment manufacturers, disruptions are beginning to occur in the supply chain for new shipbuilding,” said chief executive Yukito Higaki at the Sea Japan trade show in Tokyo. “Supply problems have already arisen for items such as marine fuel oil, lubricating oil and paint.”
The supply bottlenecks mark the widening fallout from disruption to oil supplies out of the Middle East, on which Asia is highly reliant not just for transport but to secure plastics, coatings and lubricants for its manufacturing industries. China, South Korea and Japan are the world’s largest shipbuilding nations.
The latest challenges come as yards are racing to build vessels and deliver on order backlogs that are at their highest level in almost two decades. Vessel owners placing an order now will have to wait beyond 2029.
The number of shipyards globally has more than halved since a boom in 2008, according to UN Trade and Development. While profitability has improved in recent years as orders have picked up, shipbuilders struggle to recoup additional costs from sudden price rises because of how contracts are structured.
Shin Ueda, president of Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, which manufactures ferries and ships that carry cars, said suppliers of petroleum-linked products were asking to negotiate delivery times and price rises. “We do get the sense that these effects are beginning to emerge,” he said.
Paint suppliers said they were rescheduling delivery times with shipyards because of difficulty securing product. Prices have already soared for other users of paint. Nippon Paint has raised prices 75 per cent for paint thinners used in Japan’s building sector.
South Korean shipyards appeared to be less affected. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean said they had sufficient inventories of shipbuilding materials and saw no delays or disruptions to their work yet.
However, Hanwha Ocean did not rule out an adverse impact if the war dragged on. “Things are OK so far because of enough inventory, but there will likely be an impact if the war gets prolonged,” said a company spokesperson.
Bae Ki-yeon, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said supply chain bottlenecks were unlikely to cause challenges at shipyards before September and the industry had experience weathering supply chain shocks.
Shipbuilders are not just contending with supply issues. Takamasa Ogino, an executive at Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding unit, said it was concerned shipowners’ “wait-and-see” approach to new orders could result in a prolonged “sluggish” market.
According to maritime freight management group Veson Nautical, new-build contracts for dry-bulk ships have fallen from 45 in January to none in April, compared with 14 orders during the same period last year.
If disruptions hit yards in China and South Korea, the top two shipbuilding nations, the effects could be felt acutely in the gas markets in the long run.
Executives in the liquefied natural gas shipping industry have warned that not enough vessels will be built by 2030 to meet the transportation needs associated with planned gas export infrastructure.
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in London and Buseong Kang and Daniel Tudor in Seoul
