Hanwha Ocean Establishes Circular Shipbuilding Industry Ecosystem in Geoje and Gyeongnam Regions

MOU Signed with Busan City for Establishment of 'Busan Engineering Center'
Expansion of Marine and Special Vessel Design Workforce
Enhancing Competitiveness of Geoje Plant through Facility Investment
Creating New Jobs in Geoje and Gyeongnam Regions

Hanwha Ocean is accelerating efforts to secure design personnel, which will serve as a stepping stone for pioneering the global market in the marine and special vessel sectors.

Through this, the company plans not only to secure construction capabilities that can overcome the shipbuilding industry's business cycle and enhance Hanwha Ocean's competitiveness but also to establish a new virtuous cycle shipbuilding industry ecosystem by creating new jobs in the Geoje and Gyeongnam regions.

On the 22nd at 2 p.m., Hanwha Ocean held a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing ceremony with Busan City to establish the ‘Busan Engineering Center.’ The signing ceremony was attended by Kim Hee-chul, CEO of Hanwha Ocean, Park Hyung-joon, Mayor of Busan, and other officials.

Hanwha Ocean Geoje Shipyard.

The Hanwha Ocean Busan Engineering Center, which opened in May this year, is expected to start operations with about 150 design personnel in the marine and special vessel sectors. Hanwha Ocean plans to hire an additional 350 outstanding design personnel by 2027 to work at the Busan Engineering Center.

The opening of the Hanwha Ocean Busan Engineering Center holds strategic significance as a base expansion to stably secure excellent talent in line with business area expansion. As the shipbuilding industry enters a boom period, orders are increasing and the market is expanding into the marine and special vessel sectors, making the additional recruitment of talent in related fields an essential factor for long-term growth.

Hanwha Ocean plans to expand its design scope into new fields with the opening of the Busan Engineering Center. Through this, the company expects a ‘butterfly effect’ such as improving production capacity and scaling up the Geoje plant by promoting new business expansion and increasing orders that it has not been able to undertake until now.

In preparation for business expansion and increased orders, Hanwha Ocean has established plans to expand large-scale facilities such as cranes and docks to improve productivity and is proceeding sequentially. Once these large-scale facility expansions are completed, it is expected to realize a regional win-win structure by creating a large number of additional new jobs in the Geoje and Gyeongnam areas.

In fact, since the launch of Hanwha Ocean, the scale of regular employment has been steadily increasing due to business expansion. At the time of Hanwha Ocean’s launch in May 2023, the number of employees was about 8,500. Since then, new and experienced employees have been continuously hired across various roles such as production, design, research and development, and sales, increasing the number of Hanwha Ocean employees to 9,700 as of December last year. Through continuous job creation, Hanwha Ocean plans to expand its workforce to more than 11,000 by 2027. Most of the increasing employees will be stationed at the Geoje plant.

Hanwha Ocean is also simultaneously promoting the expansion of design personnel at the Geoje plant.

In November last year, Hanwha Ocean acquired ‘DisectiNS,’ a quality sector company, and newly launched ‘Hanwha Ocean Engineering.’ To expand its design business, Hanwha Ocean Engineering newly established a design organization this year. The newly established Hanwha Ocean Engineering Design Division at the Geoje plant plans to secure about 200 new design personnel by 2027. These personnel will be responsible for production design and detailed design in the merchant ship sector.

To this end, Hanwha Ocean Engineering plans to continuously strengthen cooperation with major local schools in Geoje and regional talent development and recruitment. The aim is to establish a virtuous cycle system where local talent continuously flows into the recruitment process for experienced and new employees in the shipbuilding and marine sectors, linked with local talent development programs.

The Busan Engineering Center will also serve as an advanced base for Hanwha Ocean’s global market development in the marine and special vessel sectors.

Since its launch, Hanwha Ocean has continuously pursued global expansion in the marine and special vessel sectors. Last year, it acquired Dynamac Holdings, a Singapore-based specialist manufacturer of floating offshore plant topsides. Additionally, by acquiring the Philly shipyard in the United States, it secured a strategic foothold in the North American shipbuilding and defense markets, strengthening its competitiveness in this sector.

A Hanwha Ocean official said, “With the operation of the Busan Engineering Center, Hanwha Ocean will build a new regional win-win shipbuilding industry ecosystem, such as doubling the competitiveness of the Geoje plant and creating new jobs in the Geoje and Gyeongnam regions. The Geoje plant will further develop as a core business site of Hanwha Ocean, which is advancing as a ‘Global Ocean Solution Provider.’”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.