HD Hyundai, ECO launch US shipbuilding project

HD Hyundai Co., South Korea's largest shipbuilding group, has kicked off a joint shipmaking project with US partner Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), as demand for the two allies’ collaboration in shipbuilding grows amid growing Washington-Beijing trade rows.

The Korean shipbuilder said on Tuesday that an ECO delegation, including its Chief Executive Dino Chouest and a team of engineers, visited HD Hyundai's research and development center in Gyeonggi province and shipyards in Ulsan to learn from the world’s top shipbuilder.

Their trip to Korea comes one month after the two shipbuilding majors signed an MOU on a shipbuilding partnership that includes joint construction of small- to mid-sized container carriers — liquefied natural gas (LNG) dual-fuel ships — at ECO’s Tampa Ship shipyard in the US by 2028.

They also agreed to broaden their collaboration to include port crane construction in the future.

The partnership has gained further traction amid growing US demand for non-China-built vessels, driven by escalating trade tensions between the US and China.

The world’s No. 1 economy is also seeking to rebuild its domestic shipbuilding capacity under the Donald Trump administration, in part to counter China’s rapidly expanding maritime manufacturing dominance.

REVIVAL OF US MARITIME INDUSTRY 

Over the past three years, US shipbuilders have produced only three 3,600-TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent unit, container ships, according to Clarksons Research.

With the US lagging far behind Korea, China and Japan in shipyard automation, its global competitiveness has sharply declined.

During their stay in Korea, the ECO delegation paid close attention to HD Hyundai’s automation solutions deployed in the Ulsan shipyards and discussed their application along with robotic welding technologies at shipyards.

Last month, HD Hyundai also sent its engineering team to ECO’s shipyard to help upgrade its production systems and facilities.

"HD Hyundai fully supports efforts to revitalize the US shipbuilding industry," HD Hyundai Executive Vice Chairman Chung Ki-sun was quoted as saying during his meeting with ECO CEO Chouest.

“The joint shipbuilding project between the two companies in the United States will serve as an excellent example of Korea-US cooperation in the shipbuilding sector."

ECO is a shipbuilding group that operates five commercial shipyards across the US. It is a major player in the offshore support vessel (OSV) sector, with a fleet of 300 OSV units in operation.

HD Hyundai is the holding firm of Korea’s largest shipbuilding group, which is also the world’s largest.

Its intermediate shipbuilding holding firm, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., oversees three shipbuilding units: HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., HD Hyundai Mipo Co. and HD Hyundai Samho Co.

Write to Si-Ook Ahn at siook95@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.