Additional VLOC Contracts
Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) announced on October 23 that the company received an additional order for five 325,000-ton very large ore carriers (VLOCs) from Polaris Shipping. This order was placed based on an option contract signed last month when HHI had landed an order for ten large ore carriers from the shipping company. As a result of the execution of the option, the total order swelled to 15 and the order amount increased to US$ 1.2 billion.
Polaris Shipping placed this additional order as the shipping company recently signed a charter agreement with Vale, the world's largest mining company. The ship is 340 meters long, 62 meters wide and 29.8 meters tall and will be built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.
In particular, “LNG ready” design is applied to the vessel to cope with environmental regulations that will be strengthened in the future. The ship will be loaded with eco-friendly facilities such as an auto ballast control system and a desulfuring scrubber.
"Hyundai Heavy Industries has the world's best technology to build high-efficiency, eco-friendly vessels," a Polaris Shipping official said. “This fact made us place orders for all 18 VLOCs (about 1.7 trillion won or US$1.5 billion) with the HHI Group."
Meanwhile, this year, the HHI Group has won 110 contracts worth US$6.7 billion, 90% of its target of US$7.5 billion.