Hyundai Heavy Industries to construct another yard in Kunsan

[Neptune]

South Korean builder Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) announced that it will construct its No.2 shipyard in Kunsan city, Chollabuk-do. The new shipyard will be equipped with a newbuilding dock and an outfitting basin. The yard, to be built with an investment of 407.2 billion won, is scheduled to go into operation by January 2010. Details of the project such as facilities and equipment are yet to be released, but local newspapers report that HHI plans to build a yard capable of building about 20 units of 180,000-dwt class vessels per year. The local papers report that the new yard will have a dry-dock 380 meters long overall and a 1,600-ton gantry crane on a site of about 2.33 million sq.m. In addition, it will be equipped with a barge for launching. Construction work on the new yard is scheduled to begin within 2008, and completed within 2009 at the earliest. HHI reportedly plans to build about 20 ships per annum in terms of 180,000-dwt class with the volume of processed steel estimated at 400,000 tons. It envisages chalking up 2 trillion won in annual sales. In September 2007, HHI acquired a total of 1.5 million sq.m of land in Kunsan city and decided to build a block-fabricating factory. In parallel with this, HHI is now giving technical and other training to about 500 workers newly hired locally. The new shipyard being planned for Kunsan will be built separately from this block factory. It seems that HHI had long been considering to develop Kunsan into its No.2 production center in the long run.

With a shipyard sitting on a total of 6 million-sq.m site in Ulsan, the eastern part of the country, HHI is building ships and offshore structures with nine dry-docks and on-land facility. A 10th dry-dock is currently under construction scheduled for completion within 2009. HHI builds in excess of 5 million-grt worth of new ships a year with annual sales totaling 80 trillion won as of 2006, ranking the world's No.1 both in newbuilding volume and annual revenue.

Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD), a group shipbuilder, operates a yard in Ulsan city, and another subsidiary Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries has a large shipyard in Mokpo city, southwestern South Korea.

Source: Sea Trade Asia