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Berterottière answered a question on Monday during GTT’s third-quarter earnings call regarding the number of vessels required to transport the record 84 million metric tons of FIDed projects year-to-date in 2025.
“What we can say on the 84 million tons per annum is that 17 million are not from Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America, so to speak, to the rest of the world, where you have a very important shipping intensity and, in particular, as the Panama Canal is quite congested and where the shipping intensity is something like 2.3,” he said.
“In fact, I consider 67 million tons are from Gulf of America to the rest of the world and the shipping intensity can be 2.3 or, let’s say, 2 ships for a million ton, to be cautious. For the rest, the 17 million tonnes, you are on Mozambique to the rest of the world and the shipping intensity is probably 0.9 or 1 ship per million ton,” he said.
“So altogether, it’s a very, very large number of ships. Let’s say, without going to be too specific, far more than 100 ships to be ordered and probably something close to 150 — around 150 ships ordered,” Berterottière said.
“Instability” of regulations
French LNG containment giant GTT received orders for 19 LNG carriers, seven very-large ethane carriers, and one FLNG in January-September of this year, while its revenue rose 29 percent compared to the same period last year.
Berterottière said that the outlook for LNG demand for the next year is “very strong,” howevher the geopolitical context remains “quite complex.”
“I would say that the instability of regulations between the two sides of the Pacific Ocean are creating a kind of concern, still perplexing the decisions of shipowners. I do hope that the recent discussions are going to be able to clarify that,” he said.
He said that there is really a “hesitation” from shipowners to place those orders with shipyards.
“It’s a perfect word for characterizing the current situation. In fact, the owners are weighing whether they should take the decision now. They are very much perplexed due to the instability in regulations,” he said.
We had taxes on Chinese-built ships in the US. We don’t have them anymore. We have taxes in China on American ships. So they would like a more stable environment before taking decisions,” Berterottière said.
He said LNG carriers are the most expensive commercial ships.
“So they are weighing the risks before taking these decisions. I can say that we have a lot of discussions with shipowners. They would like to move. They would like to know whether they can go to China. They would like to know what kind of competition they can benefit from between China and Korea. So that’s considerations that for the time being, they are weighing,” he said.
2026 will be “significant”
“So when is it going to change? I think we may have orders in the last two months of this year. And I think that year 2026 will be significant in terms of ordering,” he said.
Berterottière also said that he does not think that there are “many slots still available for building ships in shipyards for delivery in 2028. And so then it’s in 2029.”
“And I’m feeling that these slots are fairly far away for the needs that owners have. So there is going to be a kind of acceleration in the market,” he said.