News from Korea

On October 7, Hyundai Heavy Industries launched a 105,000DWT tanker built on land. She was ordered from Novoship in Russia and will be delivered by January next year. She is the first ship built on land. The South Korean shipbuilder will build a total of 16 ships on land. They are 8 tankers for Novoship, four for Teekay and 4 for Qatar Shipping. Hyundai Heavy Industries will deliver 16 ships built on land by 2007. The South Korean shipbuilder has experience of building offshore platform of submersible, FPSO and others on land.

Yang Ming, Taiwan, announced that it will order five 8,200TEU container ships to meet the ever growing demand of the transpacific route. The decision was made at a recently held board of directors meeting. They will join Yang Ming?s fleet by the end of 2008. The shipping company will deploy them on the Asia-US West Coast route.