Hanwha Ocean Secures 1.5 Trillion Won Container Ship Order from Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport

[Financial News] Hanwha Ocean has secured an order from Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport for six LNG dual-fuel container ships worth 1.5 trillion won. The company won the follow-up order just one year after the initial contract last year, reaffirming its technological capabilities in eco-friendly vessels.
Hanwha Ocean announced on the 3rd that it had signed a contract with Yang Ming Marine Transport to build six 13,650-TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships. One TEU is equivalent to one 20-foot container. The contract is worth approximately 1.5527 trillion won. The vessels will be built at the Hanwha Ocean Geoje Shipyard and delivered sequentially by the second half of 2029.
This contract marks an additional order placed by Yang Ming Marine Transport approximately one year after it ordered seven 15,880-TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships from Hanwha Ocean in September last year. Hanwha Ocean explained that the follow-up order within such a short period reflects the shipowner’s confidence in its design and production capabilities, as well as its project-management expertise.
The vessels will feature Hanwha Ocean’s independently developed Type-B LNG fuel tanks based on high-manganese steel. Compared with conventional nickel-alloy steel or aluminum, high-manganese steel is more cost-competitive while maintaining high toughness and strength in cryogenic conditions as low as minus 163 degrees Celsius. This enables LNG fuel tanks to achieve both greater safety and economic efficiency. Hanwha Ocean also plans to apply the latest hull-form optimization technologies to improve fuel economy, operational efficiency, and cargo-loading efficiency. The company aims to reduce the fuel costs required for vessel operations while responding to increasingly stringent International Maritime Organization (IMO) environmental regulations.
The global container ship market is seeing ordering demand shift from large-scale fleet-capacity expansion toward the replacement of aging vessels and the transition to eco-friendly fleets. As a result, competition is intensifying among shipbuilders with technologies for constructing eco-friendly vessels, including LNG dual-fuel ships. Hanwha Ocean plans to continue its selective order-taking strategy, focusing on high-value-added and eco-friendly vessels.
Hanwha Ocean CEO Hee-Chul Kim said, "The confidence in Hanwha Ocean’s design and production capabilities and project-execution expertise, demonstrated through the first project, has once again led to a large-scale follow-up order just one year later. We will continue to enhance our differentiated eco-friendly technologies and quality competitiveness so that our cooperative relationship with Yang Ming Marine Transport can develop into a long-term partnership."
Yang Ming Marine Transport Chairman Tsai Feng-ming said, "This contract demonstrates the strong partnership between Yang Ming Marine Transport and Hanwha Ocean, as well as our shared commitment to building a competitive and sustainable fleet. We look forward to further strengthening the long-term cooperative relationship between the two companies."
[email protected] Won-il Jung Reporter