NOL names HHI, Daewoo as builders of 10,000-TEU ships

NOL names HHI, Daewoo as builders of 10,000-TEU ships    Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines confirmed on Friday that its order for eight 10,000-TEU vessels, announced at the end of June, is split equally between two Korean shipyards, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.
   The four vessels to be built at Daewoo will have a design capacity of 10,700 TEUs, while the Hyundai ships are of 10,100-TEU size. Total value of the eight-ship deal is about $1 billion.
   The vessels, scheduled to be delivered in 2011, will be the largest ever deployed by NOL’s ocean carrier subsidiary APL and have been slated for the Asia/Europe route. APL has its U.S. headquarters in Oakland.
   “These vessels will be introduced when additional capacity is required to support the growing needs of our Asia/Europe customers. Importantly, they will also enter service when many existing and new terminals will have the next generation of container handling equipment suited to this larger size of vessel,” said Ron Widdows, APL’s chief executive officer.
   Last week, NOL said it will have a 20 percent stake in a 4 million-TEU container terminal concession at Rotterdam's Maasvlakte 2 port complex, which will begin operations in 2013. Other partners in the consortium are Dubai Ports World (30 percent), CMA CGM (10 percent) and APL’s partners in the New World Alliance, MOL (20 percent) and Hyundai Merchant Marine (20 percent).