Shipbuilding Orders Show Big Falling Off

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27442, 31 August 1954, Page 9

Shipbuilding Orders Show Big Falling Off

(From the London Correspondeht of “Th* Presa?)

LONDON, July 21. Cold winds are starting to blow along the bustling shipyards which clutter the lower Clyde, ttye Tyne, the Wear and the Tees, where Britain’s shipbuilding industry is concentrated. Although the stocks are crowded with the skeletons and half finished hulls of hundreds of liners, cargo ships and tankers, shipbuilders are worried about the dwindling lists in their order books. They fear that soon there may be a return to the pre-war conditions of boom years—and dreaded slump years that brought misery to thousands on Tyneside and Clydeside. The shadow of falling orders which has fallen over the 200.000 shipbuilding workers is revealed in the latest order figures issued by the Shipbuilding Conference. Last year British yards only received orders for 217 ships’totalling 456,000 tons a third of the previous year’s orders and only an eighth of the gross tonnage booked in J 951. In the first six months of this year, orders only amounted to 133 ships of 232,000 tons and some 14 ships totalling 155,000 tons were crossed off the order books as owners cancelled future contracts. The fall in new orders has been sudden. In the post-war boom period, British shipyards were bursting as ship owners rushed to replace fleets lost during the war. Britain launched nearly half the world’s total new tonnage from 1946 to 1950 and when these replacement orders tailed off, the Korean war, which brought a worldwide rise in freight rates, encouraged a new flow of orders. Oil companies and charter firms wanting the new super-tankers also added to the boom. By 1951, shipyards were receiving orders for 4,000,000 tons of shipping and the value of ships built for overseas countries during the year shot to £53,000,000. As builders overhauled their backlog, the export figures dropped to £36,000,000 in 1952. * -

The total order book which had reached a peak of 7,000,000 tons in 1951 gradually shrank until last month, only 4,800,000. tops of shipping 'were on order at British yards. Some yards still have orders for tankers that will keep them busy for two or three more years but smaller firms with a backlog of only a few ships are now anxiously seeking orders to replace the new ships that will soon leave their slipways. What has caused the fall in construction contracts? • Shipbuilders admit that the large 4,000,000 ton orders of 1951 have taken care of the needs of some owners for many years but they say that other buyers are also holding back from placing orders as their freight rates are falling and they are also expecting lower construction costs. A shortage of steel in Britain last year also hampered the industry and led to art increase in costs. The Shipbuilders, are watching their foreign competitors closely. Many yards in Germany and Holland which were totally destroyed during the war are now working at top pitch with new equipment and new assembly methods. Not only do the Continental yards work longer hours than the British but the builders also work round the clock on a three-shift basis and on Saturdays instead of the British one-shift system. One large shipowner has estimated that these differences mean that he can buy five ships on the Continent for the price of four in British yards. A decrease in orders may prove a blessing in disguise for some ship yards. With smaller backlogs, they will be able to guote shorter delivery dates to buyers and compete on more equal terms with Continental yards. Although Germany is , Britain’s strongest competitor in the world’s shipbuilding industry with a constructional tonnage amounting to 12 per cent., Britain still builds a third of i the world’s shipping.