SEOUL, October 16 (AJP) - HMM, South Korea’s largest shipping company, said Thursday that it will order 12 eco-friendly container ships from domestic shipbuilders in a deal worth 3.05 trillion won ($2.3 billion), marking its first major local order in seven years.
The 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessels will be built by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean, two of South Korea’s leading shipbuilders. Each ship will run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), a lower-carbon alternative to conventional marine fuels.
According to DNV, a Norwegian classification society, LNG can cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 23 percent, nitrogen oxides by over 80 percent, and sulfur oxides by more than 99 percent compared with traditional fuels.
The company already operates a fleet of cleaner vessels, including nine methanol-fueled and two LNG-fueled container ships.
HMM last placed a major domestic order in 2018, commissioning 20 vessels — twelve 24,000-TEU ships and eight 16,000-TEU ships — for about 3.15 trillion won. It followed up with additional orders for twelve 13,000-TEU ships in 2021 and nine 9,000-TEU methanol-fueled vessels in 2023.
“In the increasingly competitive global shipping environment, this investment will allow HMM to expand its capacity and strengthen its eco-friendly capabilities,” HMM said in a press release. “We plan to enhance our competitiveness through ongoing investments based on our mid- to long-term strategy.”
The order is also expected to boost South Korea’s shipbuilding sector, which has been recovering from years of cyclical downturns, driven in part by rising global demand for low-emission vessels.
* This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
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