New era for the very large container ship begins at HHI shipyard
Section laid in dry dock for 10,000 TEU vessel

HHI’s Shipbuilding Division of Korea announced today it had commenced to assemble a 10,000TEU containership by keel-laying in No. 3 dry dock caling it the start of the new era of the very large containership on April 3.

The ship is one of the four containerships ordered from COSCO, China's shipping company in 2005 and will be delivered in early of August, 2007, said the shipbuilders.

The vessel will measure 349 m in length, 45.6 m in width, and 27.2 m in depth, fit with a 94,000-horsepower engine for a service speed of 25.8 knots or 48 km/h.

Including four 10,000TEU containership for COSCO and eight 11,400TEU containership for CMA-CGM in France, HHI now has 27 super-large containerships of 10,000 TEU capacity and over on its backlog including nine for its affiliate, Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries(HSHI).

HHI has won orders for 49 ships worth US$4.7 billion (including HSHI) so far this year. For 2007, HHI has targeted a newbuilding order of US$ 9.1 billion and delivery of 82 ships amounting to 5.6 million gross tons (GT).

Lloyd’s Register (LR) is to class the four 10,000 TEU COSCO vessels which will be the world’s largest declared capacity containerships.