On July 8, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), the intermediate holding company for HD Hyundai Group’s shipbuilding business, announced that it has signed contracts for the construction of four new ships of two types with a total value of 492.5 billion won (about $356 million) with two shipping companies.
Specifically, HD KSOE has entered into a contract with a Middle Eastern shipping company for the construction of two 88,000 m³ very large gas carriers (VLGCs), with an order value of KRW 343 billion ( about US$ 248 million) and a unit cost of about US$ 124 million, which will be constructed by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and are expected to be delivered in June 2027. In addition, HD KSOE has signed a contract for the construction of two product tankers with an order value of KRW 149.5 billion ( about US$108 million) with an Oceania-based shipping company, to be built by HD Hyundai Mipo and expected to be delivered in March 2027.
HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ 2 VLGCs are from Pertamina International Shipping (PIS), the shipping subsidiary of Pertamina, the Indonesian national oil company, industry sources said.
Since July, HD KSOE has announced a number of new ship orders. On July 1, HD KSOE announced that it had signed a contract with an African shipping company for the construction of four 7,000 dwt product tankers, with an order value of KRW 266.7 billion ( about US$ 192 million) with a unit price of about US$ 48 million. The new shipbuildings will be built by HD Hyundai Mipo, and are expected to be delivered by June 2026. The order was reportedly actually placed by Evalend Shipping of Greece.
On July 4, HD Hyundai Samho, a subsidiary of HD KSOE, announced that it has received an order for two 93,000 m³ Very Large Ammonia Carriers (VLACs), which are expected to be delivered by September 2028. Although the shipyard did not disclose the owner’s information, industry sources said the order is from Maersk of Denmark and is the last 2 optional ships of the Letter of Intent (LOI) for the construction of 4+2+2 VLACs signed by the two parties in October 2023, with the first 4 and the first 2 optional orders taking effect at the end of 2023 and in April of this year, respectively.
Including the latest order, HD KSOE has taken orders for 122 new ships valued at around US$12.95 billion, achieving 95.9% of its annual order book target of US$13.5 billion.
