Hanwha Ocean Co., Ltd. (), formerly known as Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME; ), is one of the "Big Three" shipbuilders of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, along with

Hyundai Hyundai is a former South Korean industrial conglomerate ("''chaebol''"), which was restructured into the following groups: * Hyundai Group, parts of the former conglomerate which have not been divested ** Hyundai Asan, a real estate construction ...

and

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

History

On 21 February 2011, the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group (Maersk) ordered 10 large

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

s from DSME, each with a capacity of 18,000 containers, surpassing the then record holder; the Mærsk E-class at 15,200 containers. The contract is worth $1.9bn. The first was to be delivered in 2014. In June 2011, Maersk ordered ten more, for another $1.9bn. The new class is called the Triple E class. On December 20, 2011, Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering won the largest single defense contract by a Korean firm; valued at $1.07 billion to build three Indonesian submarines. It also would mark the first exports of submarines from South Korea. On 22 February 2012, a £452 million order was placed with DSME for four 37,000 tonne

double hull A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some di ...

ed '

MARS Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

' fast fleet tankers by Britain's

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

for the

Royal Fleet Auxiliary The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a naval auxiliary fleet owned by the UK's Ministry of Defence. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service and provides logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The RF ...

. The ships entered service in 2017. The firm built 15 icebreaking

LNG carrier An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). Overview The first oceangoing liquified natural gas tanker in the world was '' Methane Pioneer'', which entered service in 1959 with a carrying capacity of ...

s commissioned by

Yamal LNG Yamal LNG () is a joint venture led by Novatek based around a liquefied natural gas plant located in Sabetta at the north-east of the Yamal Peninsula, northwest Siberia, Russia. In addition to the LNG plant, the project includes production at the ...

which are used to export

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

from the Russian Arctic. The

ice class Ice class refers to a notation assigned by a classification society or a national authority to denote the additional level of strengthening as well as other arrangements that enable a ship to navigate through sea ice. Some ice classes also have ...

Arc7

Yamalmax Yamalmax is a class of ice navigation tankers for the transportation of LNG with maximum dimensions that allow passing through the approach channel of the port of Sabetta located on the Yamal Peninsula (channel width , depth ). The project wa ...

ships are designed to operate year-round from the Yamal Peninsula and to break ice up to thick when sailing bow first and up to thick in astern direction. The tankers were designed in Finland by Aker Arctic Technology Inc. The South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection found of accounting fraud in DSME's books on 15 June 2016. In July, 2016, shares in DSME were suspended from trading, and were announced to be suspended until at least September 28, 2017. After suffering losses of Won3.3tn in 2015 and Won2.7tn in 2016, it was given a government loan in March 2017 to prevent bankruptcy. In 2017, it was uncovered that North Korea may have hacked the company and stole company's blueprints in April 2016. In December 2022,

Hanwha Group Hanwha Group () is a large business conglomerate (chaebol) in South Korea. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Co. (), the group has grown into a large multi-profile business conglomerate, with diversified holdings stretching from explosivesthei ...

announced that it would acquire a controlling 49.3 percent stake in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering worth 2 trillion won (US$1.5 billion). The deal was supported by the

Korea Development Bank Korea Development Bank (KDB Bank) is a South Korean state-owned development bank which aims to encourage the industrial development of South Korea. It was founded in 1954 in accordance with The Korea Development Bank Act to finance and manage ...

in an attempt to improve competition in the Korean shipbuilding industry. In July 2024, Hanwha Ocean became the second Korean shipbuilder after

Hyundai Heavy Industries HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (HHI; ) is the world's largest shipbuilding company and a major heavy equipment manufacturer. Its headquarters are in Ulsan, South Korea. History HHI was founded in 1972 by Chung Ju-yung as a division ...

to sign a master ship repair agreement (MSRA) with

Naval Supply Systems Command The Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) is a military unit of the United States Navy that serves supply command for providing supplies and services to both the Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, the ...

(NAVSUP), qualifying it to participate in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

's MRO business. On 29 August 2024, Hanwha Ocean won an MRO contract for the USNS Wally Schirra, the US Navy's

auxiliary ship An auxiliary ship is a naval ship designed to support combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliary ships are not primary combatant vessels, though they may have some limited combat capacity, usually for purposes of self-defense. Auxili ...

, and 3 months of maintenance work will take place at the

Geoje Geoje (; ) is a Administrative divisions of South Korea, city located in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. It is located near Busan. Hanwha Ocean in Okpo and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) in Gohyeon are both located on Geoje Island. The cit ...

Shipyard from 2 September 2024.

Ships built

* Crane vessels ** 1 * Container ships ** 20 ** 11 (Gen2) ** 10 of 16 ** 8 of 14 ** 6 ** 5 ** 6 of 14 ** 23 ** 6 ** 5 * Submarines ** 3 Type 214 ** 8 of 9 ** 2 ** 2 of 9 * Surface naval ** 3 of 6 s ** 3 s ** 4 of 8 s ** 3 of 9 s ** 1 of 4 s * Auxiliary ships ** 1 of 2 s ** 5 of 5 s

Corporate governance

Ownership

References

External links