Take, for instance, the latest predictions for the medium term outlook for tankers, released recently by McQuilling Services. To paraphrase it in one sentence, tanker operators needn’t bother getting out of bed until 2013, because too many ships will be chasing too few cargoes.

The current orderbook, at 1,505 vessels over 10,000 dwt, amounts to 35% of the existing world fleet.

With boxships, the sensible yardstick is teu capacity, and current figures from Clarksons put the orderbook at just over 40%.

But that is nothing compared to the picture in dry bulk, where one estimate in June put the comparative figure at 70%.

Something has to give, and the reality is that many of these orders are going to be cancelled, even at the cost of forfeiting substantial deposits, or at best delayed and deferred.

Yet both South Korea and more especially China are pushing ahead with plans to increase shipyard capacity, presumably in the hope that they can still sell output by slashing prices.

This has lead one senior Japanese executive to raise the spectre of a shipyard price war in the years ahead. Well, it is a free market and it is entirely the yards’ call. But the risk is that this kind of tactics is going to make an already bad big picture even worse.