After the acquisition fell through, South Korea’s Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), the world’s eighth-largest container shipping company, began to push forward its fleet expansion plan.
HMM plans to build six 13,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships at a South Korean shipyard and has invited bids from HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries, with the bid deadline set at the end of August. HD KSOE is reportedly “attaching great importance” to the project.
“Considering that container ships in the 10,000 to 16,000 TEU class can easily access a wide range of ports and markets, the 13,000 TEU class container ships offer high flexibility in global trade,” HMM said.
Although HMM expressed the hope that the shipyard could deliver the ship as soon as possible, its spokesperson also stated: “No final decision has been made yet.”
Market estimates put the construction cost of a 13,000TEU LNG dual-fuel container ship at between US$180 million and US$185 million. Based on this, the total value of HMM’s up to 12 new ships is between US$2.16 billion and US$2.22 billion.
It is reported that the new shipbuilding project that HMM is promoting is part of the company’s medium- and long-term strategy for 2030 proposed in 2024. The company plans to expand the fleet size to cover container ships and bulk carriers.
Specifically, HMM plans to spend 11 trillion won in the container shipping sector to ensure that the size of its container fleet will be increased to 130 ships and 1.5 million TEUs; in the dry bulk and oil tanker sectors, it plans to invest 5.6 trillion won to expand the fleet size of oil tankers and bulk carriers from the current 36 to 110 ships.
It is worth noting that HMM’s new shipbuilding plan comes at a time when the company has announced the suspension of its acquisition of SK Shipping’s tanker and bulk carrier assets. Due to the two parties failing to reach an agreement on the purchase price, SK Shipping’s controlling shareholder Hahn & Company has terminated HMM’s preferred bid and will seek new bidders.
Since the beginning of this year, against the backdrop of an overall slowdown in the global new shipbuilding market, order activities in the container ship sector have remained stable.
Clarksons data shows that in the first half of this year, a total of 201 new container ships with a total capacity of 1.9 million TEUs were ordered worldwide, an increase of 92% over the average value of the past 10 years.