Hyundai Vietnam shipbuilder gets $140 mln order for two petrochemical carriers

The Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding Company will build two petrochemical carriers for its parent company HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (HD KSOE) for delivery by June 2026.

Per a stock exchange filing Wednesday, HD KSOE says the 176.2 billion-won ($140 million) order has been placed by an unnamed shipping company located in Bermuda.

Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding Company is a joint venture established in the south-central coastal province of Khanh Hoa in 1996 between HD KSOE subsidiary Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and Vietnam’s state-run Shipbuilding Industry Corp.

The first South Korean-invested overseas shipyard began operations in 1999 and has received a total of 199 orders to date, of which 160 have been delivered, according to Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding president Lee Jong Chan.

The first vessel delivered was the 56,000 DWT bulk carrier “E.R. Bergamo” in 2009. Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding has since solidified its position as the largest shipyard in Southeast Asia.

Last month, the company secured an order for two oil and chemical tankers from an undisclosed Africa-based shipping company. The deal’s financial details have also not been disclosed.

The $350-million shipyard now employs around 5,000 local workers.

In related news, Hanwha Ocean, another major South Korean shipbuilder, signed an MoU on July 22 with the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and domestic corporation Green Peace Holdings to train Vietnamese shipbuilders for the Korean firm to employ.

Vietnam ranks fifth in the global shipbuilding industry with an order backlog of 1.24 million Compensated Gross Tonnage (CGT, an indicator of the amount of work that is necessary to build a given ship); and Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding accounts for 74.4% of this figure, equivalent to 924,000 CGT, according to www.offshore-energy.biz, a global news platform in the maritime and offshore world.

With a sales target of $543.8 million and plans to deliver a total of 13 ships this year, Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding installed a 700-ton Goliath crane last year and aims to further expand facilities and enhance productivity to achieve a construction capacity of 20 ships a year by 2025.

“This achievement was made possible through the continuous transfer of technology and knowhow from Hyundai Mipo Shipbuilding, as well as the high educational aspirations and diligence of the local Vietnamese workers,” the news platform quoted Lee as saying Wednesday.

Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding accounts for 40% of Khanh Hoa province’s annual export value, according to provincial data.