The contract is the largest single order in the last five years since HHI received an order of ten large-sized containerships from a Greek shipping company in 2012.
The signing ceremony held at HHI’s Seoul office, was attended by Ka Sam-hyun, COO of HHI Group Ship Sales Division; Chung Ki-sun, Executive Vice President of Corporate Planning Office of HHI; and Kim Wan-jung, CEO of Polaris Shipping.
The ships, measuring 340 m in length, 62 m in width and 29.8 m in height, will be designed as eco-friendly ships applying LNG Ready design to meet environmental regulations and reduce fuel consumption, and equipped with a ballast water treatment system and a desulfurisation equipment scrubber. The vessels are scheduled to be delivered by 2021.
An HHI official said, “Even under unfavorable market conditions, we have proven our competitiveness with a big order contract in five years. We are beefing up our marketing efforts to meet clients’ needs on the back of our eco-friendly technologies.”
HHI Group has received a total of 20 orders to build vessels from Polaris Shipping, and delivered seven vessels including four 250 000 t VLOCs ordered in 2013 so far.
The total number of ships HHI Group won so far this year is 99 ships worth US$5.8 billion, which is a 500% plus increase for the comparable period last year when it clinched 20 ships worth US$2 billion.
