A brand of Finland-based Cargotec, MacGregor, has received a further $50m order from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) to optimise the cargo handling systems of seven container vessels.
The order is an extension to the original $77m contract it signed with HHI in November 2013 to optimise vessels, which included a five-year extended MacGregor onboard care agreement and a five-year operation guarantee.
The vessels are being built for the United Arab Shipping Company, which has now exercised its options for six additional A-14 series and one A-18-series vessels.
With the latest contract, the total number of UASC’s 14,500 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container ships reached 11 and six 18,800TEU container ships.
The new container ships will be fitted with MacGregor cargo handling solutions such as hatch covers, a lashing system and product software Lashmate that are designed to maximise cargo carrying capability and operational efficiency.
MacGregor Customer Solutions director Ari Viitanen said that the company’s specialist solutions business model has been applied to this order to meet the customer’s exact requirements and maximise the vessels’ efficiency and earning potential.
“This approach secures our early involvement in the ship specification phase, which is essential from the cargo system productivity point of view,” Viitanen said.
“The advantages offered by our solutions approach are not limited to newbuilding projects; they can also be delivered through retrofit projects for existing individual vessels or fleets.”
Delivery of the ships is scheduled to commence this year and run through 2016.
