December 3 - The Rickmers Group has taken delivery of Rickmers Masan, its tenth MPC (multi-purpose carrier).
Built at the Jingling yard in China, the new ship is the first in a series of four superflex heavy MPC ships that are being long-term chartered to Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) for a period of eight years. They will operate a new HMM service linking the Far East with the Middle East.
The naming of Rickmers Masan and her renaming as Hyundai Masan took place at the port of Masan, Korea. At just over 190m in length and with a deadweight capacity of 30,000 tonnes, Rickmers Masan is similar to the Rickmers fleet's Hamburg class ships, a type of ship that has been deployed in Rickmers-Linie's Round-The-World Pearl String Service since 2002. She is equipped with two 320-tonne cranes capable of a combined lift of 640 tonnes.
Meanwhile, Rickmers (Japan) has been appointed general agent for HMM in Japan. As a consequence, Rickmers (Japan) is now able to offer Japanese shippers the HMM Services to the Middle East, complementing Rickmers-Linie's services to North and Central America.
Representatives of Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and of the Rickmers Group, together with the sponsor Ms Ji-Yi Chung, Executive Vice President of HMM, gathered in the port of Masan, South Korea, to christen the 30,000dwt Hyundai Masan.
