quote:
SINGAPORE: Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's biggest shipbuilder, and its competitors will be able to keep charging record-high prices for at least two more years because rising demand has outpaced supply, shipowners said.
Executives at Varun Shipping, which has spent $320 million buying vessels this year, and at BW Shipping Managers, which runs the largest privately held oil supertanker fleet, said they expect current prices to hold for at least two years.
STX Pan Ocean, South Korea's biggest transporter of iron ore and coal, said it may have to keep paying top dollar even longer.
Sea carriers ordered a record $105.5 billion in new ships last year, enough to keep the largest yards working at full capacity until 2010. Expanding trade with China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, is fueling exports and imports.
"High building prices will remain for the time being, at least until 2011-2012, because of low capacity and strong growth in China," STX Pan Ocean's chief executive, Lee Jong Chul, said in an April 2 interview at Sea Asia 2007 in Singapore.
