Recently, Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries(SHI) signed a merchant ship blocks contract of approximately KRW 50 billion (USD 38.5 million) for Hanwha Ocean to fabricate and supply merchant ship blocks to Samsung Heavy Industries. Thus, Hanwha Ocean and SHI have formed a merchant shipbuilding “team,” the first of its kind between major Korean shipbuilders.
Segments delivered by Hanwha Ocean will be used for 16 16,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel powered container ships, with the contracted amount of each ship segment reportedly in the range of KRW 10-11 billion. The ship segments are scheduled to be delivered sequentially from 2026.
SHI announced in July 2023 that it had signed an order for 16 16,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel-powered containerships with an Asian shipowner, with an order value of KRW 3.9593 trillion (approx. USD 3.13 billion), which is SHI’s largest-ever single-vessel contract.
An official of Hanwha Ocean said, “It is true that the contract is signed, but we cannot confirm the details.”
The cooperation is a move to strengthen mutual cooperation among Korean shipbuilders to cope with the labor shortage in the Korean shipbuilding industry and the fierce catch-up by Chinese and Japanese shipbuilders. It is expected that the cooperation between large shipbuilding companies will be expanded to various fields in the future.