Hyundai Heavy Sets 'Unprecedented' 2,000 Ship Record

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has broken a new record this week with the announcement of the delivery of its 2000th ship, the Ocean Blacklion.

The world’s largest shipbuilding company, headquartered in Ulsan South Korea, delivered the Ocean Blacklion drillship to Diamond Offshore at the Ulsan Shipyard on Friday, hitting the 2,000th vessel milestone.

Mr. Choi Kil-seon, chairman & CEO of HHI said, “Today, we wrote a new chapter in the global shipbuilding history by delivering the 2,000th ship.” In a statement given to Korean news agencies yesterday Kil-seon called the accomplishment ‘unprecedented’ citing that companies in Europe and Japan with longer-established histories have yet to hit this milestone.

HHI built its first ship, a 266,000-ton VLCC, in the Mipo Bay Shipyard near Seoul in 1974 and completed a second vessel of the same size within a two year period. In 2002 the company was the first in the global shipbuilding industry to hit the 1,000 ship delivery milestone and HHI was also the first to achieve a 100 million gross ton ship production record in 2012.

The gross tonnage of the 2,000 ships HHI built amounts to 126 million, twice the gross tonnage of total ships built last year worldwide. The top four most-delivered ships of HHI are containerships (583), bulk carriers (357), tankers (232) and VLCCs (147). Country-wise, Greek ordered the most ships of 254 followed by Germany with 238, Japan with 120 and Denmark with 101.

Speaking about the company’s continued path in the industry Kil-seon further commented, “as we have been over the past four decades, we will continue to stand firm as the global leader in the shipbuilding industry with tireless innovation and shipbuilding method improvement for the coming decades.”