Hyundai Merchant Marine, Korea's only offshore shipping company, will change its company name and start cooperation with its new shipping alliance.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries announced on March 31 that Hyundai Merchant Marine will change its company name to "HMM" and begin cooperation in earnest as a member of the new shipping alliance "THE (The Alliance)."
HMM joined as a regular member of The Alliance, one of the world's three major shipping alliance, in June 2019 through the government's policy support for the reconstruction of shipping.
The Alliance is a shipping alliance with the world's fifth-largest shipping line, Germany's Hapag Lloyd, Japan's ONE ranked sixth and Taiwan's Yang Ming ranked eighth, as regular members. HMM will also begin cooperation with THE Alliance in earnest on April 1.
The Alliance plans to offer a total of 33 services, with 78 ports worldwide, including Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean, North America, Central America, the Middle East, the Red Sea and India. Of the total, HMM provides 27 services.
HMM has been preemptively responding to the IMO environmental regulations that started this year by installing the scrubber early. First of all, two 11,000 TEU container ships delivered from Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction in July 2018 were equipped with scrubbers for the first time in the world among mega container ships.
In addition, all five 300,000 ton VLCCs delivered last year were equipped with scrubbers to prepare thoroughly for IMO environmental regulations. Hybrid Scrubber is installed on super-large ships that are scheduled to be introduced starting this year, enabling eco-friendly service operation.
HMM will also install all of its scrubbers on eight 16,000 TEU-class ships scheduled to be deployed in the second quarter of 2021. HMM plans to complete the installation of scrubbers by about 70 percent of its operational fleet sometime this year.
The company's fleet is also expected to expand significantly with the introduction of super-large ships from the end of this month.
HMM currently has 450,000 TEUs of containers, and if it receives delivery of 20 super-large ships (about 420,000 TEU) sequentially from the end of this month, it will increase to about 900,000 TEU, doubling the pre-load capacity.
"We are not just remembering HMM as a shipping company, but we are seeing it grow further into a group of top-class companies related to shipping," CEO Bae Jae-hoon said in his commemorative speech. "Based on the potential we have built up, let's bring together our power and make HMM a global top brand."
