China Merchants has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with authorities in Quanzhou, Fujian province, to take control of the long-dormant Quanzhou Shipyard, according to Splash247. The state-owned conglomerate aims to revive a facility whose newbuilding operations have been largely idle for more than a decade, marking the latest in a series of yard reactivations by the group. The Quanzhou site covers 134 hectares and includes 3.6 km of coastline, along with two drydocks capable of accommodating vessels of up to 300,000 DWT. Repair work resumed at the yard in 2023, but a return to large-scale shipbuilding would represent a substantial expansion of activity there. Financial terms and the final ownership structure for the project have not been disclosed. Over the past 18 months, China Merchants has already absorbed or reactivated shipyards in Qingdao, Nanjing and Wuhan, part of a broader industry trend of capacity expansion in China. Clarksons Research reported this month that the global orderbook had reached a record 226.1 million compensated gross tonnes, surpassing the previous peak of 225.5 million cgt set in September 2008. The backlog is valued at approximately $700 billion, with Chinese yards holding 68% of outstanding orders. Clarksons is tracking roughly 225 shipyard expansion projects worldwide, more than three-quarters of them in China, where overall shipbuilding capacity has nearly doubled in recent years. The Quanzhou revival fits within this wider pattern of consolidation and growth among state-backed shipbuilding groups.
