Maersk Signs $1.8B Deal With DSME

Note: To learn more about Containerships be sure to read the excellent book The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson

Maersk Line, a unit in shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk, said on Tuesday it had ordered 11 ultra-large container vessels from South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co (DSME) .

The contract has a value of $1.8 billion, or around $163 million per ship, about 4% more than order price OOCL contracted Samsung Heavy Industries to build in March. Maersk’s deal includes an option for another six vessels.

The hull of the new ships will be nearly identical to the Triple-E class but TEU container capacity will increase by seven percent.

How Daewo and Maersk will achieve the capacity increase is unknown but Daewoo competitor HHI announced DNV GL approval of their new Skyhook system. SkyBench was also announced yesterday but first demonstrated at the SMM trade fair in Hamburg last year.

The SkyBench concept is an innovative design to increase the cargo capacity of large container vessels. The bridge and upper three decks of a “twin island” design container would be constructed as a separate sliding block, mounted on rails and able to move over the length of two 40ft container bays. In combination with a resizing and relocation of fuel tanks and the utilization of the void spaces beneath the accommodation block in a traditional design, this allows the addition of two extra 20ft container bays. The resulting cargo increase amounts to 270 TEU on a 17-row wide 10,000 TEU ship, 450 TEU on a 23-row wide 19,000 TEU ship and 350 TEU on a 20-row wide 14,000 TEU vessel.

“We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to DNV GL for the approval of our SkyBench concept design,” said Yoon Moon-kyoon, Senior Executive Vice President & COO of HHI’s Shipbuilding Division. “As we have been doing over the past four decades, we will continue to provide competitive ships differentiated from others in terms of quality, reliability and technological capabilities to our valued clients. I believe that SkyBench, like many other previous technological breakthroughs we have shown to the world, will surely bring benefits to our customers.”

“This was an extremely interesting and exciting project and we are very pleased that HHI selected us to work with them to realize this concept,” said Tor E. Svensen. “The SkyBench shows how the industry’s increased focus on efficiency and maximizing transport capacity has really sparked innovation in design and operation.”

The SkyBench mechanism takes ten minutes to operate, using four electric drive train units to move the block backwards from its normal position. The two 40ft side casings on which the accommodation block rests provide structural strength and hold lifeboats, provision cranes and utility rooms. In an emergency, the sliding block is detachable and is designed to float independently of the vessel.

It is unlikely (but possible) that Daewoo will license the Skyhook technology from a competitor, so it will be interesting to see just how cargo capacity will increase 7%.

Note: To learn more about Containerships be sure to read the excellent book The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson