Hyundai and Daewoo poised to win Kuwaiti order

Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering are in line to win as many as seven tanker orders from Kuwait, which plans to spend more than $525 million to renew its fleet. Kuwait Oil Tankers (KOT), a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum, is currently negotiating with Daewoo and Hyundai and a preliminary agreement may be signed with the Korean shipbuilders this week.

KOT currently has 23 ships and will probably replace six or seven of them. The company expects to take delivery of the first of the newbuildings in 2006 to help move supplies to Kuwaiti customers.

The new fleet will help KOT to maintain its 20% share of Kuwait Petroleum’s oil shipping requirements. The company, which won’t have to increase debt to pay for the new ships, used to have a 38-tanker fleet before it retired older ships.