Largest in Two Years
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) announced on September 21 that it has clinched a 926.6 billion won (US$817.11 million) deal from a European shipping firm to build five 22,000-TEU container vessels. In a regulatory filing, Daewoo Shipbuilding said it will deliver the vessels by March 15, 2020.
The shipbuilder did not reveal the name of the buyer and details of the agreement on the requisition of the buyer. However, major foreign media reported that the buyer of the ships may be MSC, the world’s second-largest shipping firm.
DSME said, “There are conditions for the buyer and the company to make the agreement enter into force. So, the contract will be null and valid if the terms are not met.”
It is the largest deal won by DSME in two years. The company hasn’t clinched a large deal since it won a US$1.8 billion (2.04 trillion won) deal to build 11 20,000-TEU container ships from Denmark’s Maersk Line, the largest shipping company in the world, in June 0215
With the latest deal, DSME has secured deals valued at US$2.57 billion (2.91 trillion won) to build 23 ships so far this year, which is equivalent to 56.2 percent of its annual order target of US$4.57 billion (5.18 trillion won).
Previously, foreign media reported that MSC is close to a deal with Samsung Heavy Industries for up to six 22,000-TEU vessels and is expected to turn to Daewoo Shipbuilding for a further five. Accordingly, Samsung Heavy is highly likely to sign a formal agreement.
In the meantime, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has developed and localized an LNG regasification system, which is core equipment for LNG-FSRU (Floating, Storage and Regasification Unit) with its own technology.
SHI held a demonstration on the same day (Sep. 21) to inform its corporate customers of the superiority of the new system named S-Regas (GI).
The demonstration was attended by about 40 participants from 19 domestic and overseas shipowners including Golar LNG, Hoegh LNG and Gaslog which are LNG-FSRU operators.
S-Regas (GI) is a system that vaporizes LNG using a glycol mixture. Samsung Heavy Industries has developed the new technology as a successor to a direct sea water regasification system developed earlier.
"The new technology is environmentally friendly as it has small corrosion risk and saves energy for regasification over 5% compared to the current method of directly heating and vaporizing LNG with seawater,” said an official of SHI.