STX Shipbuilding gets $215m bulk-ship order

(Bloomberg) — STX Shipbuilding Co., the first South Korean company to build a yard in China, said it received a contract to build two bulk carriers for 204 billion won ($215 million) from Greece.

The 181,000-ton vessels, the biggest of their type, will be delivered by June 30, 2010, the Jinhae, South Korea-based company said in a regulatory filing, without naming the buyer.

Shipping lines including STX Pan Ocean Co. and Pacific Basin Shipping Ltd. are adding bigger vessels to their fleet as China, the world's biggest steelmaker, and India buy more iron ore and coal from Australia and Brazil.

STX Shipbuilding forecasts this year's orders will increase 15 percent to $12 billion, helped by orders for bigger vessels. The company will start building its first ship at its Dalian shipyard in China in the first half.

Veolia to set up ship-breaking centre at Bordeaux

(Bloomberg) — Veolia Environnement SA, the world's biggest water company, plans to set up a facility at the Port of Bordeaux to dismantle ships, after France recalled a warship from India deemed too toxic to break up almost two years ago.

The site would use an existing dry dock at the port to break up "large ships" and handle scrap metal for materials from vessels, Veolia unit Veolia Environmental Services said in an e-mailed statement today. "This new facility will provide France with a centre of excellence in ship dismantling that will enable the country to deal with end-of-life ships," the statement said.

News of the facility comes as Veolia and rival bidders including Suez Environnement await a government decision on the winner of a contract to dismantle the asbestos-laden French warship "Le Clemenceau." The carrier arrived at the French port of Brest in May 2006 when former President Jacques Chirac recalled it from India after environmental groups said workers there could not break it up safely.

"Unlike quayside operations which are currently the most common practice in ship dismantling, use of a dry dock enables all possibilities of pollution to be kept under control," Thierry Beheregaray, head of Veolia Environmental Services Aquitaine, said in the statement.

Suez and Veolia, Paris-based companies competing for water and waste contracts, have recently moved into airplane dismantling in France, which like ship-breaking offers the possibility of reselling scrap metal at prices that have risen in recent years.

Suez started building its first aircraft-dismantling site at the Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees airport, near Airbus SAS's headquarters in Toulouse, France. Veolia entered the market with its acquisition of Bartin Recycling Group, France's third-largest scrap-metal company.

NKorea: Remember 'bitter lesson' of the Pueblo

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said the United States should remember the "bitter lesson" of the communist country's seizure of the American spy ship USS Pueblo four decades ago.

The USS Pueblo was seized off North Korea while it was on an intelligence-gathering mission on January 23, 1968. The North says the ship was inside its coastal zone. US Navy records say it was in international waters.

"The US should not forget the bitter lesson drawn from the incident," an unidentified spokesman for the North's Korean National Peace Committee was quoted as saying in a statement carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the seizure. The incident was a product of the US gangsterlike policy of aggression" against North Korea, the statement said.

Forty years ago, North Korean torpedo boats attacked the lightly armed USS Pueblo as it was monitoring ship movements and intercepting messages. One of the US ship's 83 crew members was killed and ten others were wounded. The crew, led by Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, were released after 11 months of captivity and sometimes torture.

North Korea displays the USS Pueblo — now docked on the Taedong River in the capital, Pyongyang — as a symbol of resistance. It is the only active-duty US warship in the hands of a foreign power.

Decades of tension between Pyongyang and Washington have so far prevented the return of the ship, which is named after a city in Colorado. The North said Washington has "continued to conduct aggressive espionage and military provocations ... driving the situation to the brink of war".

The statement called on Washington to end its "hostile policy" toward the North and to replace the armistice agreement that halted the 1950-53 Korean War with a peace treaty. Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations with each other, but they have been increasing contacts amid international efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.

The North's official media however, regularly accuse the US of planning to attack. Washington denies the charge.

Hyundai Heavy plans to deliver 25% more ships

(Bloomberg) — Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world's largest shipbuilder, plans to deliver 25 percent more vessels this year as it increases production to work through almost four years worth of orders.

The company delivered 11 vessels to carry consumer goods and fuel in January, the most in a month in the industry, the Ulsan, South Korea-based company said in an e-mailed statement.

The ships were all delivered as much as two-and-a-half months earlier than scheduled, it said. Shipyards in South Korea, the world's largest shipbuilding nation, are increasing capacity after they won almost half of the $187.4 billion ship owners spent on new vessels last year. Hyundai Heavy is building two new docks and extending the length of existing ones to meet demand.

"Increased capacity means more earnings growth for shipyards in this and the coming years," said Kang Young Il, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul. He has a "buy" recommendation for Hyundai Heavy.

Hyundai Heavy delivered six large-sized container vessels, two LNG carriers, two oil tankers and one liquefied petroleum gas ship in January, the company said. The shipbuilder delivered a total of 81 vessels valued at $6.85 billion last year, compared with 73 worth $4.81 billion in 2006. Of the total, 46 were container ships, 16 oil tankers and ten LNG carriers.

Daewoo to build parts factory on demand

(Bloomberg) — Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world's third-largest shipyard, said it will build a $171 million parts factory to help work through an order backlog of almost four years.

The factory at its yard in Okpo, south of Seoul, will make blocks for vessel hulls, Daewoo Shipbuilding said in a regulatory filing today in Seoul, where it is based. Construction will be completed by March 2009, it said.

Shipyards in South Korea, the world's largest shipbuilding nation, are increasing capacity after they won orders for almost half of the $187.4 billion ship owners spent on new vessels last year.

Daewoo Shipbuilding will invest 770 billion won this year to extend the length of its existing docks and build a floating dock to make more vessels.

Daewoo Shipbuilding had a record order backlog of about $37 billion at the end of last year. Last year, it started building blocks in China's eastern port of Yentai.