Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group has signed a 240 billion won contract for three ships, breaking sales drought that has continued since the beginning of the year.

Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), the shipbuilding holding company of HHI Group, announced on Monday that it has clinched orders to build three ships for shipping companies in African and Europe. HHI, Hyundai Mipo Dockyard, and Hyundai Samho are three shipbuilding companies under HHI Group. Under the 240 billion won deal, the South Korean shipbuilder will build two 300,000-ton very large crude carriers (VLCC) and one 50,000-ton PC ship. The three ships are expected to be built at Ulsan shipyards of HHI and Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and be delivered to African and European shipping companies in January 2022. KSOE secured a deal to build four VLCCs earlier in September.

The South Korean shipbuilding industry, which experienced difficulties as shipbuilding orders plunged globally amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is showing signs of recovery after the third quarter. Chinese shipbuilders won new orders to build bulk carriers from Chinese customers in the first half of the year but South Korean shipbuilders have regained the world’s No. 1 status in the third quarter, overtaking Chinese shipbuilders with nearly twice their 3Q results.

Normally, shipbuilding orders are concentrated as the year-end approaches. This is why the South Korean shipbuilding industry expects KSOE to win large-scale LNG carrier orders from Russia and Mozambique for their LNG project there on top of the deals the shipbuilder secured early this month from shipping companies in Singapore and Liberia to build two LPG tankers and two PC ships. “We’re receiving many requests for different types of ships,” said an official from KSOE. “We plan to focus on securing orders until the end of the year.”

Source: Hyundai Heavy Industries