Faced with the growing demand for new shipbuilding, HD Hyundai (formerly Hyundai Heavy Industries Group), Korea's largest shipbuilder, decided to acquire a segmented manufacturing company in Korea for the first time after exceeding its full-year order target ahead of schedule.
To speed up ship construction, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries acquired segmented enterprises for the first time
近日，HD现代重工参与了韩国当地船舶分段制造企业LEE YOUNG Industrial Machinery Company的出售投标，收购金额达数百亿韩元。
According to industry analysts, in the case of the shipbuilding industry ushering in a boom period, in order not to let the supply of core components be poor, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries decided to acquire this major cooperative company. If successful, it will be the first time that HD Hyundai has acquired a manufacturing segment partner company (subcontractor).
Typically, ships are built by assembling more than 200 segments, and LEE YOUNG Industrial Machinery Company is the most difficult to manufacture of these curved segments. In 2023, the company's operating income will be about 70 billion won (about 370 million yuan).
At the same time, LEE YOUNG Industrial Machinery Company also has a manufacturing facility with 10 large (MEGA) sections of 20,000 tons that are combined to manufacture the bow and stern. From 2013 to 2023, LEE YOUNG Industrial Machinery Company has been losing money for 11 consecutive years. Although the production volume has been very full since 2022, it is in the process of selling due to financial difficulties due to the huge amount of accumulated losses.
In general, about 30% of the segments supplied by large Korea shipping companies through cooperative companies are used. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries plans to acquire the company and increase the proportion of segmentation autonomy.
When building a ship, shipbuilders are like building Lego bricks, transporting the required sections to the dock by crane and welding them together with other sections. If the sections cannot be delivered on time, the efficiency of ship construction cannot be guaranteed, which greatly affects the delivery time of new ships. However, the manufacturing difficulty of surface segmentation is high, and the number of enterprises that can make surface segmentation is not large. It is reported that about 200 segments are required to build a 250-meter-long LNG carrier, of which 37.5% (75) are curved segments.
HD Hyundai Heavy Industries set its sights on LEE YOUNG Industrial Machinery Company to seize the boom in the shipping market, which had only arrived for the first time in more than 10 years. This is because only by smoothly obtaining segmented supply and speeding up ship construction can shipbuilders continue to undertake new ship orders.
According to the contract, if the specified delivery period cannot be met on time, the shipyard must pay the shipowner the corresponding liquidated damages. According to the usual practice, if the ship is delayed, the shipyard must pay the shipowner a liquidated damages equivalent to 0.3% of the ship price per day; If the delivery is delayed for more than 90 days, the proportion of liquidated damages will be further increased, so the amount of compensation to be paid by the shipyard will be higher and higher.
The world's first handheld order! HD Hyundai Heavy Industries urgently needs to increase production capacity
So far this year, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Marine has undertaken orders for 165 ships and marine equipment, with a total contract value of US$18.59 billion (about 130.47 billion yuan), exceeding its annual order target of US$13.5 billion by about 137.7% ahead of schedule.
At the same time, HD Hyundai's handheld orders continue to increase. According to Clarkson's data, as of September this year, HD Hyundai Group had a total of 447 orders of about 19.8 million CGT, ranking second in the world after China Shipbuilding Group (805 ships and 29.8 million CGT). Among them, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has 154 hand-held orders of about 9.4 million CGT, which is the monohull shipyard with the largest hand-held orders in the world.
With the growth of order performance, the problem of insufficient production capacity of Korea's three major shipping companies has become increasingly prominent. Due to the shortage of segments, Korea's three major shipping companies are buying some segments from China. Since last year, Hanwha Marine has been increasing its container ship orders at its Chinese shipyard, Hanwha Marine (Shandong) Co., Ltd. (formerly Shandong Daewoo Shipbuilding).
Samsung Heavy Industries also has a shipyard in China. Since its establishment in 2006, Samsung Heavy Industries (Rongcheng) Co., Ltd. (Rongcheng Samsung Heavy Industries) has been building ship segments for Samsung Heavy Industries. Rongcheng Samsung Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. is the largest local enterprise with the largest number of employees, with 4,400 employees at full capacity and an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons. Earlier this year, Samsung Heavy Industries decided to invest no more than 18 billion won (about 96 million yuan) in Yeongcheng Samsung Heavy Industries for the construction of ultra-large liquid ammonia carrier (VLAC) storage tank manufacturing equipment.
In addition, Samsung Heavy Industries also signed a cooperation agreement with Hengli Heavy Industries in May last year, entrusting Hengli Heavy Industries to be responsible for the production and construction of a series of 15,000TEU container ships TERA section, with a steel processing capacity of nearly 70,000 tons.
On the other hand, HD Hanwha Shipbuilding & Marine has been providing segmented support for HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in the construction of container ships through its Gunsan shipyard in Korea. However, since July this year, HD Hanwha Shipbuilding & Marine has also started to introduce merchant marine segments from China.
A Korea industry source said, "Although the boom in the shipbuilding industry has come again, the supply chain composed of Korea's supporting companies is not as stable as in the past boom period. ”
At present, the Clarkson Newbuilding Price Index is continuing to rise, reaching 189.96 points on September 27, close to the all-time high of 191.6 points in September 2008. The industry predicts that this indicator will break through the highest point this year.
The Korea industry pointed out that Korea shipbuilders must seize the opportunity of the ship market to enter the "super cycle", accelerate the construction of new ships, and free up spare resources to undertake more orders, so it is particularly important to ensure the timely supply of segments.