Why Singapore's big shipyards are not scared of Chinese rivals

They have a ''prudent strategy".

According to OCBC, for contracts secured this year, most of the customers of Chinese yards are not leading players in the industry, with the exception of Seadrill.

In comparison, Keppel's and Sembmarine's customers are generally more established players. This has proven to be a prudent strategy – recently there has been news of Prospector Offshore facing financing challenges on its rig newbuilds.

Here's more from OCBC:

The company currently also risks losing some of its cash at a Cyprus bank. According to Upstream, Prospector has six jack-ups under order at SWS and Dalian Shipbuilding.

In our view, the Chinese yards do present a challenge to the incumbents, and we expect stiff competition as they scale the learning curve over time.

Meanwhile, Keppel Corp (KEP) and Sembcorp Marine (SMM) have been diversifying their product range and innovating to stay ahead in certain niche areas.

YTD, KEP has secured orders worth S$2.2b, while SMM has won S$1.6b, accounting for 43% and 39% of our full year estimates, respectively.

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