South Korean media: China's shipbuilding industry is overwhelmed with orders, yet all ship engines are exclusively sourced from South Korea.
On July 13, South Korean media reported that regardless of whether ship orders ultimately go to South Korean or Chinese shipyards, Seoul welcomes both outcomes. This is because South Korean-made engines—the "heart" of ships—are a critical component in every vessel, no matter who builds it, and currently dominate the market share. High-end, environmentally friendly engines such as liquefied natural gas dual-fuel (DF) engines require advanced technology, making the number of companies capable of producing them extremely limited. Although China has now become the world’s largest shipbuilder by scale, South Korean firms still maintain a competitive edge in the core engine sector. Recent public disclosures have confirmed this trend.
According to data from South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service’s electronic disclosure system (DART), in the first quarter of this year, HD Hyundai Marine Engine’s major clients were predominantly Chinese enterprises. Xiamen Xiangyu Logistics Group contributed 12.58% of revenue, Xiamen Xiangyu accounted for 8.63%, Taizhou Sanfu Ship Engineering Co., Ltd. contributed 13.50%, Changjiang Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. accounted for 8.96%, and Chinese customers collectively accounted for 43.7% of total revenue.
The extensive adoption of South Korean marine engines by domestic Chinese shipyards stems from two main factors: First, recent surges in shipping orders have outpaced domestic production capacity for dual-fuel main engines, resulting in insufficient output and longer delivery cycles that fail to keep up with the demand for rapid ship delivery. Second, South Korean manufacturers possess deep technical expertise and mature product lines in high-end, eco-friendly propulsion systems such as LNG and methanol engines, offering superior supply stability. As a result, many large-scale ocean-going vessel projects prioritize purchasing South Korean-made main engines.
Currently, there is no substantial technological gap between China and South Korea in marine engine development. China has achieved partial performance advantages over South Korea in thermal efficiency and new fuel compatibility metrics for green dual-fuel engines using methanol and ammonia. Meanwhile, South Korea benefits from decades of mass production experience, holding vast amounts of real-world operational data from long-term use on vessels worldwide, along with an extensive global after-sales service network—giving it a significant existing advantage. However, the core bottleneck in China’s domestic engine procurement isn’t technological limitation but rather the delayed ramp-up of high-end dual-fuel engine production capacity. The current self-sufficiency rate for high-end models stands at about 65%, with the remaining gap filled primarily by South Korean engines. As multiple new domestic engine production lines come online and undergo iterative upgrades, reliance on imports continues to decline, and China’s control over its industrial supply chain is steadily strengthening. Thus, the South Korean media report contains some exaggeration...
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1870559645747336/
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