HMM selects three shipbuilders for fleet expansion

Hyundai Merchant Marine’s 20 new containerships will have an aggregate capacity of 388,000 TEUs.    Hyundai Merchant Marine has selected South Korea’s Big Three shipbuilders to collectively construct 12, 23,000-TEU containerships and eight 14,000-TEU containerships.
   HMM said it chose Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to build seven of the 23,000-TEU ships and Samsung Heavy Industries to build the other five 23,000-TEU ships. These 12 ships are expected to be delivered in the second quarter of 2020.
   Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) was selected to build the eight 14,000-TEU containerships, which are to be delivered in the second quarter of 2021.
   The dozen 23,000-TEU ships will be deployed in the Asia-North Europe trade, while the eight 14,000-TEU ships will be used in services to the U.S. East Coast.
   HMM had sent out a request for proposal to shipbuilding companies on April 10.
   The firm said these new containerships will help fulfill its strategy of obtaining a capacity of 1 million TEUs. BlueWater Reporting’s Carrier Ranking Report shows that carriers with a capacity of more than 1 million TEUs are Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co., CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen Line and the Ocean Network Express (a container shipping joint venture between Japan’s three largest carriers, “K” Line, NYK and MOL).
   HMM has been South Korea’s largest ocean carrier since the bankruptcy of Hanjin, which had filed for insolvency in South Korea in late August of 2016.
   In the wake of Hanjin’s collapse, HMM saw its container volumes for 2017 surge 30 percent from the prior year to 4.03 million TEUs.
   HMM’s new containerships will either have scrubbers installed or use liquefied natural gas (LNG) for fuel. HMM said its next steps include negotiating further details on the new shipbuilding agreements, including prices, and concluding a final agreement.

Clarification: A previous version of this story said Korea Ocean Business Corp., a company the South Korean government plans to launch in July, will finance 90 percent of the costs of newbuilding and HMM will take the remaining 10 percent. However, an HMM spokesperson told American Shipper there is currently nothing confirmed about this.