Shipyard backlogs now stretch to 3.7 years. 7,560 vessels totalling 316 million GT are on order, the largest orderbook since 2010, and Chinese and Korean yards both average around three years to delivery.
The global fleet is getting older while it waits. The average tanker is over 14 years old and 18% of tankers are over 21. Bulk carriers have gone from an average of 8.6 years in 2018 to nearly 13 today, and more than half the fleet by vessel count is over 15 years old.
Vessels due to be phased out in 2026 and 2027 are running two to three years longer than planned, and spare parts costs have roughly doubled since before 2020, driven by steel and raw material prices.
Three things procurement teams can do
- Request quotes earlier in the maintenance cycle, not at the last minute.
- Compare prices across sourcing regions. The gap between Korea, China, Japan and Europe can be large.
- Work with sourcing partners who can reach all four regions at once.