Hyundai Heavy Industries’ Gunsan shipyard will reopen in January 2023 after a five-year hiatus to focus on fabricating newbuilding hull blocks.

Local news media reported that HHI will restart Gunsan to tap the global shipbuilding boom, which has delivered the country’s yards orders of 17.5m compensated gross tonnage in the past year, up 113% on the year before.

HHI said the yard will hire 750 workers to produce 100,000 tonnes of blocks annually.