Major shipbuilder Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) said Tuesday it has obtained a 900 billion-won ($823 million) order from an Asian shipper to build six container ships.

The vessels will start being delivered in the first half of 2023, Korea Shipbuilding said in an emailed statement.

Of the six 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container carriers, four will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., a unit of Korea Shipbuilding, and the other two will be constructed by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co., another unit of Korea Shipbuilding.

KSOE currently manages three shipbuilding units -- Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co. and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.

The cumulative orders of the KSOE's three shipbuilding units reached around $10 billion or 116 ships in 2020, meeting 90 percent of their order target of $11 billion.

The shipbuilding units set their order targets at a combined $14.9 billion in 2021. (Yonhap)