Asian shipyards get a sinking feeling

Singapore - Orders for offshore projects and new vessels are hard to come by for the Big Three in 2016

For many Asian shipyards, 2015 was a brutal year. This year could be even worse.
With oil prices forecast to fall as low as $15 a barrel and China's growth slowing, orders for offshore projects and new vessels are hard to come by for Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Company and Samsung Heavy Industries, the world's three biggest shipbuilders.
As the industry struggles with overcapacity and low rates, customers have been pushing back delivery schedules or cancelling orders outright, a trend likely to continue this year.
"Nobody is ordering new rigs," said Lee Yue Jer, a Singapore-based analyst at RHB Securities. "We're still at the worst" point of the cycle.
A troubled foray into building offshore rigs ballooned the debts of the Big Three, pushing them into losses and sending their shares down for a second consecutive year in 2015.
The troubles for South Korean builders are spreading to rivals in Japan, China and Singapore.
The tough times have hit the companies' share prices. Daewoo Shipbuilding was the worst performing stock last year on the Kospi 200 index in Seoul, falling 73 per cent. Sembcorp Marine Ltd dropped 46 per cent, the second-worst on Singapore's Straits Times Index, and IHI Corp declined 45 per cent, making it the fourth-worst on the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo.
Shares of Hyundai Heavy fell 2.6 per cent Monday in Seoul to 85,500 won, their lowest price since August. Daewoo Shipbuilding fell 1.5 per cent, while Sembcorp Marine dropped 1.7 per cent in Singapore.
Sembcorp Marine, the second-biggest builder of oil rigs, expects to post a loss in the fourth quarter, its first since the company started reporting three-month earnings in 2003. Cosco Corp Singapore Ltd, the shipbuilding arm of China Ocean Shipping Group, forecast a "significant" net loss in the same period.
Daewoo Shipbuilding, the second-largest shipyard, is poised to record its biggest-ever loss in 2015 after writing off costs from order cancellations and delays in delivering offshore drilling rigs. Hyundai Heavy and Samsung Heavy Industries posted losses in the first nine months of 2015.
"The shipbuilding environment will probably be more challenging next year, although we expect some orders from Iran once sanctions are lifted," Daewoo Shipbuilding said in an e-mail. "The offshore business will also face hardship as well next year unless oil prices rebound. On earnings, we expect a big improvement for next year."
Daewoo Shipbuilding said it's in discussions with two customers to push back delivery dates for four drill ships, which were scheduled to be handed over at the end of 2015.
Hyundai Heavy chairman Choi Kil Seon warned of worries ahead in a December 31 letter to employees.
"While most of the problematic projects are in the final stages of construction, there are still uncertainties," he wrote. "The drop in oil prices, interest rate increase in the US, slowing economic growth in China will mean restructuring for all industries." 
Hyundai Heavy aims to win $19.5 billion of orders this year for all its businesses, including for ships, offshore units, construction projects and heavy equipment, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. In the first 11 months of last year, it received $13.8 billion in new contracts, including $1.2 billion for offshore operations.
Samsung Heavy will try to improve its competitiveness through research and development. "Not all companies collapse because there's a crisis," the company's CEO Park Dae Young said. "We need to aggressively try to find hidden opportunities in crisis."
The South Korean government plans to work with banks to set up a $1.2 billion fund to help local shipping companies pay for new vessels they've ordered, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The government will also push shipyards to downsize and focus on their core businesses, and will seek to close or sell those that can't survive on their own.
Elsewhere, a number of Japanese shipyards have lowered earnings forecasts to reflect losses from shipbuilding. IHI Corp, co-owner of Japan's second-largest shipbuilder, in August lowered its net income target for the year ending in March, partly because of increased expenses for a Singapore drill-ship project. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Company also cut its forecast in October.
"The order book for the oil-rig builders will be dwindling over the next one to two years," said Joel Ng, an analyst at KGI Securities in Singapore. "We've been seeing cancellations as it will be difficult for the smaller energy producers to pay for the new rigs being built."
Sembcorp Marine said in October it had won S$2.91 billion ($2.1 billion) worth of new orders to that point last year, putting it on pace for its slowest year since 2009. Keppel Corp, owner of the world's biggest rig-builder, received S$1.7 billion in new contracts in the first nine months of 2015, which could make it the slowest since 2002. Daewoo Shipbuilding had no orders for offshore projects last year. - Bloomberg

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