Daewoo shipbuilding sails toward higher profit

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s third-largest shipyard operator, received orders worth a combined $1.5 billion to build container vessels and bulk carriers. The orders include a contract worth 1.22 trillion won ($1.3 billion) from a company in Europe to build ships that can carry 9,100 20-foot standard containers, Daewoo Shipbuilding said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. It didn’t disclose the buyer or how many vessels were ordered.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, STX Pan Ocean Co. and other shipping lines need vessels to move textiles, oil and other products to meet demand from China and the U.S. About 90 percent of global trade is moved by sea.
“We expect to exceed this year’s order target, as well as improve earnings, as we have been getting a steady stream of contracts,” Daewoo Shipbuilding said in the statement.
The Seoul-based company has received $6.5 billion worth of contracts this year, achieving more than half of this year’s target of $11 billion. It has an order backlog worth $26.6 billion, of which about half are for oil tankers and carriers of liquefied natural gas.
China’s trade surplus almost doubled in the first quarter, spurring economic growth of 11.1 percent, the fastest among major economies. The World Bank estimates that global trade volume may rise 7.7 percent this year. Daewoo Shipbuilding also said it received an order from Korea Line Corp. to build 180,000-ton bulk carriers. It didn’t specify the cost or number of vessels ordered.
The container ships and the bulk carriers will be delivered by the end of 2010.