Geoje (South Korea) (AFP)
In the shipyards of the island of Geoje (south-eastern South Korea), giant container ships are born which then go around the world.
At Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), workers are putting the finishing touches to HMM St Petersburg. It is 62 meters wide and 400 m long - 100 m longer than the Eiffel Tower - and can carry up to seven billion "choco-pies", popular South Korean cookies, or as many as human beings on the planet, assures its owner, Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM).
With a capacity of 23,820 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit, standard unit of measurement for containers representing some 33 cubic meters), it is the twelfth and latest in a new category bringing together the largest existing containers, that of the 24,000 TEUs, commissioned by HMM. Seven were built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and five by SHI.
Each of these behemoths costs between 170 and 180 billion won ($ 143 to 151 million).
The first vessel of this category to enter service, the HMM Algeciras, became the world's largest container ship on its maiden voyage in April.
The South Korean shipyard industry once dominated the world market but has suffered in recent years from global overproduction and competition from China. South Korean shipowners, for their part, suffered from the collapse of Hanjin Shipping, once the largest South Korean shipowner and seventh in the world, which went bankrupt in 2017.
HMM St Petersburg is due for delivery in September and will make its maiden voyage to Shanghai and other Chinese ports before heading via the Suez Canal to Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp and London.
The round trip from South Korea to Europe takes twelve weeks, but despite the size of the ship and the distance traveled, the crew is only 23 members.
© 2020 AFP