Hyundai Merchant Marine’s building spree adds to global orderbook

South Korea rebuilding its shipping/export capacity after Hanjin liquidated

Hyundai Merchant Marine, the world’s 12th largest container line by TEU capacity, is making a play to leapfrog its competitors by embarking on a new order spree. HMM is the only remaining South Korean deep-sea containership line since Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. went bankrupt in 2016 and was liquidated last year. 

HMM’s newest order will add a total of 388,000 TEUs to its fleet capacity, which currently stands at 458,247 TEUs. Hyundai Merchant Marine announced that it reached an agreement with Samsung Heavy Industries to build five 23,000 TEU vessels and will build another seven 23,000 TEU vessels at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. A further eight 14,000 TEU ships will be constructed at Hyundai Heavy Industries. The twelve 23,000 TEU ships will be delivered beginning in Q2 2020, and the 14,000 TEU ships starting in Q2 2021.

The twelve new 23,000 TEU ships will be far too large to go through the Panama Canal, which after its expansion can handle containerships with capacities up to 14,000 TEUs. Instead, the new fleet will be dedicated to HMM’s recently bolstered Asia-Europe service. Two weeks ago, HMM said that it would end its Transatlantic service and would no longer deliver to the ports on its TA2 and TA3 lines, which included Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Le Havre, New York, Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah. Evergreen Marine, based in Taiwan, also said it was ending one of its three Transatlantic lines, while Maersk is notably expanding its Transatlantic offerings by establishing a new weekly service running from the various ports in the Mediterranean to Montreal and Halifax.

“To comply with the new environmental regulations, HMM will opt for scrubber installation or LNG bunkering for all the newbuilding vessels after thorough discussions with the finally selected shipbuilder,” wrote HMM in a statement. 

In January 2017, while a court declared Hanjin Shipping bankrupt, HMM received a $660M rescue package from the South Korean government. The fact that HMM’s megaship order is being spread almost evenly across South Korea’s ‘big three’ domestic shipyards shows just how committed the South Korean government is to fully supporting its shipping industry. Hyundai Merchant Marine moves about 25% of South Korea’s exports, and its share will grow rapidly in the near future as it expands its fleet’s capacity.