Deals this week: Hyundai Global Services, Ulstein, Fincantieri

Hyundai Global Services (HGS), the marine services spin-off of Hyundai Heavy Industries, and KSS Line, a shipping company based in Korea, have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the retrofit of the latter’s medium-sized LPG carriers with an exhaust gas cleaning system.

HGS aims to enter the eco-friendly ship business through the collaboration.

Norway-based ship-building company Ulstein has signed a deal to build a plug-in hybrid vessel named Color Hybrid for Color Line.

The new vessel will be 160m-long and 27.1m-wide, and will accommodate up to 2,000 passengers, 100 crew and 500 cars.

Color Hybrid is expected to enter service in 2019, and will be the world’s biggest plug-in hybrid vessel. It will operate between Sandefjord and Strömstad in Norway.

Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri has received an order from Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCL) to build four 140,000t next-generation ships to be delivered between 2022 and 2025, along with an option to construct two more vessels for delivery in 2026 and 2027 respectively.

The new vessels will be based on the design of the Breakaway-Plus Class ship owned by NCL.

Hyundai Merchant Marine is set to buy stake in two terminals located in Japan and Taiwan from Hanjin Pacific, which is a company owned by Hanjin Shipping (60%) and MTIL (40%).

The deal is valued at KRW15bn ($13.15m).