News / US shipyard brings in Hyundai know-how to assist in building containerships

In line with the Trump administration’s push to revitalise US shipbuilding, domestic builder Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) is to collaborate with South Korea’s HD Hyundai to construct mid-sized containerships by 2028, it was announced today.

ECO mainly builds offshore support vessels, and has limited expertise of constructing containerships.

HD Hyundai, South Korea’s largest shipbuilding group, said ECO had sought the collaboration, and they had signed an agreement termed Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership for US Commercial Shipbuilding”.

ECO, said to be one of the few active US shipbuilders, has five shipyards and was established in 1960 by Edison Chouest. His son, Gary, is now the firm’s president. It has built, and operates, more than 200 vessels that support the movement, installation, and drilling of offshore plants.

Between 2022 and 2024, there were just three containerships, of 3,600 teu, ordered by US operators, mainly to comply with the Jones Act, according to Clarksons’ data.

President Donald Trump wants to counter China’s dominance in various sectors, including shipbuilding, and the US Trade Representative is imposing port fees on Chinese-built, -operated, and -owned ships.

To overcome the minor shipbuilding scale in the US, the Trump administration is open to working with shipbuilders in US-allied countries like South Korea and Japan. Last month, US trade representative Jamieson Greer also discussed the possibility of working with HD Hyundai to produce container-handling cranes to replace the Chinese-made cranes in US ports.

HD Hyundai and ECO will jointly build medium-sized (around 3,600 teu) containerships at ECO’s shipyard up to 2028. HD Hyundai will provide design, equipment-purchase and technical support for the LNG dual-fuel vessels.