European orders hit record
THE Community of European Shipyards’ Associations has reported that European production in terms of vessel completions recovered by 20% in 2006, following three consecutive years of increasing orders. Although new contract volume was not as strong as in the two preceding years, the intake of 5.38m compensated gross tons (cgt) was 15% higher than the delivery output of 4.64m cgt, with the net effect of bolstering the outstanding orderbook to a modern-day record of 16.9m cgt. While the tonnage produced grew by 20%, turnover expanded by 43%, underlining the generally high value of the projects involved, including a large proportion of technically complex and outfitting-intensive vessels, and improvements in productivity.