Daewoo starts construction of world’s biggest container ship
ISTANBUL
Danish Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary pose for media at the Daewoo shipyard in Geoje Island, South Korea. ABACA PRESS photo
South Korean shipbuilder said yesterday it has started work on the world’s largest container vessel, with a deck big enough to accommodate four football pitches.Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering said the 400-meter-long ship will carry up to 18,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers.
It would be delivered to Danish shipper A.P. Moeller-Maersk in the second half of 2013, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday.
The vessel is the first of 20 such container ships that Daewoo, one of South Korea’s three largest shipbuilders, will build by 2015 under a $3.6 billion order from the Danish company.
Construction at South Korean yard
Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik on April 12 attended a ceremony marking the start of the vessel’s construction at Daewoo’s shipyard at Okpo on the south coast.
Daewoo’s major shipyard was opened at at Okpo Bay, Geoje Island, located on the southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula, in 198. The company, one of the largest three ship builders across the world, builds vessels for civil companies and militaries.
Maersk is active in a variety of business sectors, primarily within the transportation and energy sectors. It is the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world.
Posco, the world third largest steel producer, Turkey’s Kibar Holding and Daewoo International broke ground last September for a 200,000 ton stainless flat steel plant in Turkey’s northwestern province of Kocaeli.
Posco, Kibar and Daewoo will hold 60, 30 and 10 percent stake respectively in the $350 million project.
INCHEON mulls bid to buy London airport
SEOUL – Agence France-Presse
South Korea’s main airport operator is interested in buying London’s Stansted from the British Airports Authority in a bid to expand overseas business, an official said yesterday.
State-owned Incheon International Airport is “watching with interest” Stansted as well as Glasgow airport, the Incheon official told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.
“We also have an interest in other British airports to be put up for sale in the near future,” he said, adding no specific plans had been made yet including how to finance a potential bid.
Britain’s Competition Commission in 2009 ordered BAA, owned by Spanish conglomerate Ferrovial, to offload London’s Gatwick and Stansted airports as well as either Edinburgh or Glasgow to meet anti-competition requirements. BAA has subsequently sold Gatwick and Edinburgh airports to US investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners. In February it lost an appeal against the order to sell Stansted.
