The US re-imposing sanctions on Iran has left South Korea’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) with an awkward bottleneck at its production line in Ulsan.
HHI was meant to start delivering a series of four 14,500 teu boxships to state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) from April this year in an order that also included six 49,000 dwt product tankers worth a total of $700m.
However, despite a number of the ships now being finished HHI has not been able to deliver the vessels to IRISL and the ships are now taking up space at the yard and its subsidiary Hyundai Mipo where the tankers are being built.
Hyundai Mipo has been hit by Iranian sanctions before. Ten years ago it signed with IRISL to build 10 tankers and seven bulk carriers. However, only one ship was delivered thanks to an earlier round of sanctions hitting the Middle Eastern nation.
