On April 25, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), the intermediate holding company for HD Hyundai Group’s shipbuilding business, announced that it has signed a contract with an Asian shipping company to build two container ships, with a total order value of 559.6 billion won (about US$390 million), with a single ship cost of about US$195 million.
The new ships will be built by HD Hyundai Samho and are expected to be delivered to the shipowner in sequence in the first half of 2028.
Although HD KSOE did not disclose the shipowner information, the day before the company’s announcement, Taiwan shipping company Wan Hai Lines announced on the 24th that it had ordered four additional 16,000TEU methanol-fueled reserved container ships, with HD Hyundai Samho and Samsung Heavy Industries contracting two ships each. The order is an option for four ships of the same type signed by the two parties in November 2024. The first batch of four ships is expected to be delivered in November 2028. The total order value is US$788 million, and the cost of each ship is about US$197 million.
Including the latest order, HD KSOE has won 31 new ship orders worth approximately US$4.89 billion this year, completing approximately 27.1% of its annual order target of US$18.05 billion.
By ship type, there are 16 container ships, 4 oil tankers, 4 liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering ships, 2 ethane carriers, 4 LPG/ammonia carriers and 1 LNG carrier.