On July 8, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), the shipbuilding holding company of South Korea’s HD Hyundai Group, announced the signing of a contract with an Oceania-based shipowner for the construction of four container ships.
The four 13,000 TEU container vessels will be built at HD Hyundai Samho in Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province, with deliveries scheduled by the end of 2028. The total contract value is 834.8 billion KRW (approximately $610 million or 4.37 billion RMB), translating to a unit cost of $152.5 million per vessel.
For reference, Clarksons data shows that the current newbuilding price for a conventional-fueled 14,000 TEU container ship is around $151 million, unchanged from the same period last year.
HD KSOE did not disclose specific details about the shipowner, but foreign media reports indicate the order came from Korea’s Sinokor Merchant Marine, with the vessels to be leased by HMM, South Korea’s largest shipping company.
This marks the third batch of container ship orders secured by HD Hyundai Samho this year, bringing its total to 10 vessels. On April 28, HD KSOE announced a contract with Greek shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis’ core company, Capital Maritime, for four 8,400 TEU container ships worth $560 million (approximately 4.04 billion RMB), or $140 million per vessel. These will also be built at HD Hyundai Samho, with deliveries scheduled by the end of June 2028. On May 30, HD KSOE signed another contract for two 8,400 TEU container ships totaling 386.8 billion KRW (approximately $280 million or 2.02 billion RMB), also priced at $140 million per vessel, to be delivered by HD Hyundai Samho before June 2028.
Notably, after recording zero orders in Q1 2024, HD Hyundai Samho has gained momentum in Q2, securing multiple new orders totaling 23 vessels worth $3.45 billion (approximately 24.7 billion RMB). In addition to the 10 container ships mentioned above, these include two crude oil carriers, five large LNG carriers, and six 157,000 DWT Suezmax crude oil tankers.
At the beginning of the year, HD Hyundai Samho set an annual order target of $4.5 billion. To date, the company has already achieved about 76.7% of this goal in less than 100 days.
Including the latest four container ships, HD KSOE has secured 80 new orders this year worth $11.11 billion (approximately 79.7 billion RMB), reaching about 61.5% of its annual target of $18.05 billion (approximately 132 billion RMB). These include five LNG carriers, six LNG bunkering vessels, 48 container ships, two VLECs (very large ethane carriers), 11 oil tankers, and eight ammonia carriers.
Industry insiders in South Korea attribute HD Hyundai Samho’s rapid succession of orders to improved operational efficiency and significantly shortened dock cycles, freeing up more berths and creating opportunities for follow-up contracts. On June 11, HD KSOE announced that the delivery timeline for four 8,700 TEU container ships ordered by Wan Hai Lines in September 2023 had been advanced from May 15, 2027, to November 30, 2026—nearly six months ahead of schedule.
