It is the general view of the outside world that the US shipbuilding industry is not good. But to what extent?
There are five large shipyards in the United States, divided into two groups: General Dynamics (GD) and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII). GD has three companies: Bath, Electric Ship, and NASSCO. Two of HII's companies: Ingalls and Newport News.
Ingalls Shipyard
These five companies have completed almost all the large-tonnage ship construction in the United States. If you look closely, since the beginning of the 21st century, except for NASSCO, the other four have not received a single order from a private company. In the past 23 years, NASSCO has received a total of 23 oil tankers: 4 110,000-ton tankers, 4 37,000-ton tankers, and 15 30,000-ton tankers. The rest of the orders were either from the U.S. Navy or the Coast Guard. All four are Navy or Coast Guard.
Isla Bella
U.S. merchant shipping is basically a piece of. Even if you finally make a little bit of luck, it will soon be gone. For example, in December 2012, American shipowner Tote ordered the world's first LNG-powered container ship "Isla Bella" from NASSCO. At that time, it caused a shock in the shipbuilding industry, because LNG power is green and environmentally friendly. The ship is a 3100TEU container ship, which means that it can hold 3600 20-foot standard containers (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit, referred to as TEU). Then, less than five years later, on September 19, 2017, CMA CGM signed a contract with China State Shipbuilding Corporation to build nine LNG-powered container ships of 22,000 TEU, each with a displacement of about 260,000 tons. Now the big shipowners have no one to go to the American shipyards to build large LNG container ships. However, for the Americans, it can be built, and the Philadelphia shipyard is happily preparing to build three 3600TEU LNG ships for Manson, but the delivery may have to be in 2027.
The output value of the U.S. shipbuilding industry has stagnated for many years. A 2013 report by the U.S. Maritime Administration showed that the U.S. shipbuilding industry had revenues of $9.8 billion in 2012, and that number increased to $9.9 billion in 2019. In 2013, there were 107,000 people in the shipping industry, and in 2019, the number was 98,000. Since 1987, U.S. shipyards have built most of the gadgets such as ferries, tugboats and fishing boats, in addition to government orders. For example, in 1987, the U.S. government ordered 29 ships, while the number of ferries, tugboats, fishing boats, etc., reached 1,440, but after the end of the Cold War, that number plummeted to less than 900. It then slowly rose back to around 1000, but after three years it began to decline again. By 2020, the number of civilian ships built was less than 450. In the same year, orders from the US government amounted to 17 ships.
It can be seen that due to the lack of competitiveness of the civil ship industry in the United States, it is difficult to compete with their counterparts in China, Japan, South Korea and other countries in the world. The most profitable LNG carriers and luxury cruise ships in civilian ships have not been touched by American shipyards since the 21st century. The entire shipbuilding industry can only rely on government orders to survive in this way. However, the government also orders too much porridge, and with the US national debt high, it is not optimistic in the long run. In short, continued contraction is still a general trend that is difficult to reverse in the U.S. shipbuilding industry.