In October, Korea's order receipts amounted to 720,000 CGTs, or 69% of the world's 1.04 million CGT order placements, Clarkson Research, a shipbuilding and shipping market analysis firm, said on Nov. 10. With 250,000 CGTs, China won second place, followed by Finland with 30,000 CGTs.

China came in first with 5.22 million CGTs in terms of order intake from January to October 2020, ahead of Korea's 3.77 million CGTs. With 1.05 million CGTs, Japan ranked seventh.

The world order backlog was 67.34 million CGTs as of the end of October 2020, down 1 percent from the end of September. By nation, with 24.31 million CGTs, China took first place, followed by Korea with 19.02 million CGTs and Japan with 8.59 million CGTs.

Global ship order placements amounted to 11.56 million CGTs during the January-October period of 2020, down 48 percent from 22.4 million CGTs in 2019. In 2018, they had 28.8 million CGTs.

VLCC orders dropped by 31% from 2019 to 770,000 CGTs during the same period, while orders for Suezmax oil tankers fell by 5% to 690,000 CGTs, and those for Aframax oil tankers dropped by 33% to 740,000 CGTs.

Orders stood at 2.14 million CGTs for 140,000 square meters or larger LNG carriers, down 29 percent from 3.01 million CGTs in 2019. In 2020, 670,000 CGTs were struck by containerships, down 58 percent from 1.59 million CGTs in 2019.

From September, the price of a VLCC dropped by US$1 million to US$85 million, while that of Aframax oil tankers dropped by US$1 million to US$46 million. The price of a container vessel (13,000 to 14,000 TEU) has also fallen from US$108 million to US$105,5 million.

Maritime Business World