Top Three Korean Shipbuilders Aim for Offshore Related Orders

Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries, the top three Korean shipbuilders, are aiming to win orders for global offshore plants and related manufacturing projects.

Their strength in the procurement and construction of offshore production facilities, drill ships, jack-up oil rigs and floating production storage and offloading units made these shipbuilders well known.

Statements are made that their knowledge and expertise does not extend to the engineering or the development of components and materials of equipment and machinery. However, some sources say that only the previously mentioned companies are capable of developing such sophisticated and massive-scale projects.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2012 these companies won a total of $9.6 billion worth of global orders to build offshore and related projects, The Korean Herald reports.

Hyundai Heavy has developed its own model of LNG FPSO, while Daewoo Shipbuilding secured an order to build a FPSO unit from Inpex, a Japanese oil and gas explorer and producer early this year and Samsung Heavy won a contract to develop a processing facility from Inpex.

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Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, April 11, 2012; Image: hhi