South Korea’s Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) has set up a team to start assessing where to place new ship orders next year. HMM officials have revealed they are looking at some containership replacement tonnage as well as ordering a VLCC.

When trying to gain full membership of the 2M container alliance earlier in the year HMM let it be known it could order as many as twenty 13,000 teu ships, however this figure now looks to be cut back.

HMM last week signed a slot chartering agreement with 2M members Maersk and MSC, failing to gain full entrance to the alliance. HMM did suggest full membership could come in three years’ time however.