Hyundai Heavy Industries-Engine & Machinery Division (HHI-EMD) reports that it has achieved a cumulative total of 200m bhp in two-stroke engine production at its engine assembly plant in Ulsan.
The achievement was marked by the starting of a 74,720 bhp 8G95ME-LGIM engine, a dual-fuel unit equipped to burn methanol, which is attracting attention as one of the next-generation eco-friendly fuels. It is the world’s first large-bore methanol engine and will propel a Maersk 16,000 TEU container ship, which is considered to be the world’s first methanol propulsion container ship.
The accumulated 200m bhp figure has been reached 44 years after Hyundai Heavy Industries produced its first two-stroke engine in 1979, believed to be an unprecedented record that no other engine builder has achieved. HHI founded the engine business in 1976 based on the judgment that it is essential to build its own engine, the heart of the ship, in order to be competitive in the shipbuilding business. HHI-EMD successfully built a 9,380 bhp engine as its first engine production in 1979. It achieved 50m hp production in 2005, beating engine makers in Europe and Japan, which have more experience than HHI-EMD. Following 10m bhp in 1992, in September 2010, just five years later, it also reached 100m bhp production and has achieved the 200m mark in 11 years and 6 months after that, solidifying what the company considers its status as the world’s top two-stroke engine maker. HHI-EMD’s global market share of two-stroke engines (as of 2022) is 36%, having been global number one for the 34 years since 1989.
Han Ju Seok, SEVP & COO, HHI-EMD, said: “HHI-EMD has played a pivotal role in Korea’s rise as the world’s best shipbuilding power through high quality for the past 40 years and will continue to strengthen its technology to lead the shipbuilding industry to make a leap forward.”
