Some 41 Greek principals have ships contracted while at the same time at least four Greek owners were reported to be in negotiations for another 17 newbuildings.

Indeed, the Greek orderbook is only behind those of the commercial giants China and Japan, which had 600 and 461 vessels contacted respectively.

According to a survey of the world orderbook of some 2,550 vessels carried out by Athens-based Newsfront, Naftiliaki, and Xclusiv Shipbrokers, Greek controlled orders are evenly spread over the segments, as the 234 orders are almost equally divided between bulkers, tankers, container ships and gas carriers with 21% of the orders being placed for bulkers, 26% for tankers, 29% for container ships and the 24% in the gas carriers orderbook.

More specifically, analysing the bulkers’ orderbook, Greek owners have placed 48 orders, approximately 5% of the 826 orders placed by owners of different nationalities. Only 18 of these 48 orders were placed in 2022, with the rest have been placed in 2019-2020. Greek owners placing dry orders, show preference for kamsarmaxes, which account for 53% of the total Greek bulker orders, with  handymax / supramax / ultramaxes in second place at 35%, the smallest bulker sizes of handysize at 8% and capesize being only 4% of the Greek orders.

Analysing the tanker orderbook, Greek orders account for 19% of the world orderbook. Greek owners have placed 62 orders while 257 orders are from other nationalities. Fifteen of the 62 orders were placed in 2022, 39 were placed in 2021 and the remaining eight in 2020. Greeks show a preference for the aframax / LR2 vessel size, as 55% of their orders are for this type/size of tankers, with MR2 orders following at 26% of the total Greek orders. VLCCs are about 13% of the Greek orders with suezmax and MR1s at  5% and 2% respectively of the Greek orders.

Greek orders for containerships are about 8% of the total. Half of the 69 Greek orders were placed within 2022 (34), while 32 were placed within 2020 and three orders are active since 2019. The  feeder size accounts for 55% of Greek orders while VLCs is the second preferable container size on order at 19% followed by handy, with 14% of orders and panamax, 12%.

Finally, in the gas orderbook, there are 55 ship orders from Greek owners and 383 orders in total, giving the Greeks 13% of the total orderbook. Fourteen of the orders were placed by Greeks this year, 36 orders were placed within 2021 and the remaining five orders being active since 2019-2020.

Some 62% of the Greek orders are for LNG carriers of 101,000 - 200,000 cu m capacity, 22% of Greek orders are medium sized LPG carriers of circa 40,000 cu m capacity and the rest, 16%, are Very Large LPG carriers (VLGC) of 80,000 - 95,000 cu m capacity. 

Source: SME