China wins 81.8% of global new ship orders in 2026 as construction steel loses steam

Chinese shipyards delivered 58.05 million deadweight tonnes (dwt) from January to September 2026, up 50.7% year on year, according to Mysteel's October 23 morning bulletin. New orders reached 175.29 million dwt, up 163.2%, and the order book stood at 399.13 million dwt at the end of September, up 64.8%.

That gives China 63.6% of global deliveries, 81.8% of new orders and 72.4% of the world's ship order book, according to the same bulletin.

Construction steel is moving the other way. For the week, apparent rebar demand fell seasonally to 2.0103 million tonnes, the lowest in nearly four years. Total inventories of the five main steel products fell by 320,800 tonnes to 14.4775 million tonnes.

On October 22, the ex-works, tax-included price of common billet in Qian'an, Tangshan, was cut by 10 yuan to 2,930 yuan per tonne, Mysteel said. The same bulletin reports that Taiyuan Heavy Industry (太重) started up China's largest straight-seam welded pipe mill, at 2,800 mm, for pipes from 600 to 2,800 mm in diameter.

CSP take: the shipbuilding boom pulls on heavy plate, pipe and flanges, while construction steel loses demand inside China. For buyers of Chinese steel, that divergence may weigh differently on the price of each product. This reading is ours, not Mysteel's.