NYK sees 290 supertanker deliveries by 2029 as commodity flows reset

Roughly 290 supertankers will hit the water between 2026 and 2029, according to Nippon Yusen Kaisha — a delivery wave comparable to the boom years of the 2000s, arriving just as today's extraordinary tanker earnings tempt owners to order more.

NYK's research group unveiled its latest shipping market outlook yesterday, and the headline is fleet arithmetic. The active VLCC fleet grows from 909 vessels at the end of 2025 to 1,082 by the end of 2029. That's a 19% expansion in four years.

The forecast does assume a substantial number of ageing vessels leave the market. Even so, the net additions point to a looser crude market later this decade. Tanker owners currently enjoying exceptional earnings may find the party has a delivery schedule attached. It usually does.

What changes for dry bulk?

Plenty, and none of it cheerful if you own capesizes pointed at China. NYK expects seaborne iron ore volumes to fall from 1.65bn tonnes in 2025 to 1.40bn tonnes in 2035 — a drop of 250m tonnes, roughly 15%, as Chinese steel production contracts over the decade.

There's a partial offset. Rising shipments from Guinea's Simandou project should support tonne-mile demand, because Atlantic basin cargoes travel further than Australian supplies on the China run. Fewer tonnes, but longer ones.Owners will take what they can get.

Coal tells a similar story. Seaborne shipments slide from 1.33bn tonnes to 1.04bn tonnes by 2035, with thermal coal accounting for most of the decline. That's near enough a quarter of the coal trade gone in ten years — the energy transition doing what conferences merely discuss.

And for gas carriers?

LNG is the mirror image. Seaborne volumes climb from 433m tonnes to 622m tonnes by 2035 — nearly a 44% increase, or around 19m tonnes of extra cargo every year on average.

Better still for tonne-mile obsessives, NYK anticipates LNG tonne-mile demand growing faster than volumes as trading distances increase. More cargo travelling further is the rare combination shipping markets actually enjoy.

Who buys it all?

NYK's answer: not China, or at least not at the old pace. India and Southeast Asia become increasingly important demand centres for energy and commodities as Chinese import growth slows. The centre of gravity in commodity demand keeps edging west and south of Beijing.

What does this change for shippers and carriers? For tanker owners, the message is that today's earnings are financing tomorrow's competition — 290 hulls is not a rounding error. For dry bulk operators, the decade-long thesis is fleet discipline against shrinking ore and coal tonnes. For LNG players, it's capacity to build for a trade that keeps widening.

The reshuffle NYK sketches won't happen overnight. But with VLCC deliveries front-loaded from 2026, the tanker market gets its test first.