In 2023, the global economic growth rate slowed down from 3.5% in 2022 to 3.1%, but showing significant resilience with accelerating global economic growth differentiation among different economies. With the relaxation of global epidemic control and the increase of geopolitical conflicts, the commodity trade has been disturbed, and the seaborne trade is expected to grow by 2.4% in 2023. The market fundamentals of the shipbuilding industry are stable and positive. The key market indicators maintain growth with a year-on-year increase of 25% in new ship orders and a 12% increase in completed deliveries in terms of deadweight tonnage. Among them, new orders for oil tankers increased by 356.6% year-on-year, and new orders for bulk carriers increased by 33% year-on-year, but container ships and gas carriers fell back. Among the major shipbuilding countries, China’s shipbuilding industry stays ahead with new ship orders accounting for 68% of the global market share. The orders for dual-fuel vessels using alternative fuels continue to grow, accounting for 34% of global orders. The shipbuilding industry is expected to maintain an upward trend in 2024, especially for bulk carriers and oil tankers. The acceleration of the decarbonization process and the development of artificial intelligence technology will also bring opportunities and challenges to the high-quality development of the shipping industry.

The bulk carrier with low additional value is difficult to choose the decarbonization path due to the cost control. The current study qualitatively analyzes the applicability of carbon capture system on the bulk carrier, and quantitatively analyzes the applicability of alternative fuel, such as biodiesel, LNG, grey methanol, green methanol, green ammonia, on the bulk carrier. The carbon capture system is not suitable for the bulk carrier, because it has problems such as the high energy consumption for capture, the CO ₂ storage tanks occupying the cargo tank volume, and the captured CO ₂ that is difficult to handle. The preliminary economy calculation of the alternative fuel is relatively poor due to the high cost and the capacity loss of the cargo tank that was caused by the low volume energy density. Considering that the use of the conventional fuel may face carbon tax, the green ammonia powered ship has certain advantages when the carbon tax is above 439 dollars/t, and the green methanol has application advantages when the carbon tax is above 692 dollars/t.

Affected by factors such as monetary policy, geopolitical conflicts and the ongoing COVID-19, the macro-economy in 2022 showed a weakening trend after a brief economic recovery in 2021, and the pattern of maritime trade developed towards regionalization. As a result, the new shipbuilding market in 2022 showed an overall downward trend, with a year-on-year decline of 30.6%. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers and offshore engineering vessels all showed downward trends, among them oil tankers showed the highest decline of 72.0%.Meanwhile, LNG carriers and Ro-Ro ships showed an upward trend, with an increase of 88.0% and 135.1%, respectively. Limited by the labor market and capacity adjustment of major shipbuilding domestic industries such as China and South Korea, the completion of shipbuilding in 2022 fell by 6.9% year-on-year. The orders at hand also decreased in 2022 with a decline of 7.5% year-on-year. Under the influence of environmental protection regulations, green fuel ships have developed rapidly, accounting for 44.5% of new ship orders, which becomes an important competitive area for shipbuilding countries. The global economic growth will continue to decline in 2023, which is expected to have a negative impact on the ship market. However, the high value-added ships such as LNG ships and green ships will continue to be popular. The global ship products will accelerate the development towards green and intelligent.

Starting from the investigation of domestic ship owners, the application of alternative fuels to international ships has been analyzed in view of the concerns of ship owners, such as fuel supply, main engine technology and fueling infrastructure. The results show that LNG, as the most mature alternative fuel at present, possesses great potential for further development in the short and medium term, while methanol and ammonia have increasing share in the medium and long term. It is predicted that the proportion of ocean-going alternative fuel powered ships in 2030 and 2040 is only 5% and 11%. In order to cope with the general trend in the future, it is necessary to accelerate the development of the methanol and ammonia internal combustion engines suitable for ocean-going ships, and launch demonstration projects of low-carbon synthetic fuels such as ammonia and methanol as soon as possible, as well as simultaneously develop corresponding innovative ship types to achieve independent control of the main engine and fuel supply.

This article reviews the world economy, shipping and shipbuilding market in 2021, and the prospects of the shipbuilding market in 2022. In 2021, with the development of COVID-19, the fiscal and monetary policies launched by the major economies boosted the economic recovery to varying degrees, and the global economy rebounded as a whole, resulting in the growth of the international maritime trade. Each segment of the shipping market performs differently due to the different supply and demand. The bulk cargo market recovered strongly, the container transportation market was in high demand, and the offshore engineering market performed well, however the oil shipping market was in a downturn. The international new shipbuilding market was active in 2021, with new ship orders increased by 80% compared with 2020, and the new orders of container ships and liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships performed well. Looking ahead to 2022, high infrastructure demand and limited fleet capacity will continue to support the bulk carrier market. The increase of the global oil supply and demand makes a positive oil market outlook. The orders and deliveries of the container vessels will continue to remain high. The liquefied gas carrier shipping market will continue to maintain a high cyclical fluctuations with the regional differentiation. The offshore oil and gas production will continue to recover. Green and intelligence are still the two hot issues in the shipping market.

With the green and low carbon transformation of the shipping industry, the importance of the low carbon fuel is gradually emerging. As there is no carbon dioxide emission from ammonia and hydrogen combustion, ammonia and hydrogen are regarded as the promising zero-carbon fuels for shipping. The total cost of the ownership (TCO) models of the ammonia and hydrogen powered ship and the traditional fuel powered ship are established to quantitatively compare the relevant economy and clarify the main influencing factors. The results show that the fuel price is the main factor affecting the economy of ships. The TCO of the ammonia and hydrogen powered ships is about twice that of the traditional fuel powered ships under the current fuel price. The low energy density of the alternative fuels is the main reason that causes this difference. The cost of the alternative fuels will be an important factor in the low carbon transformation of shipping. And the cost reduction of the alternative fuels deserves attention.