Hyundai hooks up with Doosan for offshore plant solutions

South Korea’s shipbuilding company Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has signed a memorandum of understanding with its compatriot Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (DHIC) and Center for Creative Economy & Innovation in Ulsan and Gyeongnam.

Under the agreement, the trio will collaborate on the localization of main equipment and materials for offshore plants.

HHI and DHIC agreed to develop six main items of equipment for offshore plants such as floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) units and tension leg platforms (TLP), by sharing engineering and construction technology and prowess in on- and offshore plant sectors.

HHI will apply DHIC’s flagship power technology of gas turbine generators and heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) to its offshore plants, and the two companies will jointly develop metallic materials for offshore floating structures, HHI said on Thursday.

Since forming a task force team that took on the localization of main equipment in September 2014, HHI said it has installed onto offshore plants under its yards 38 major items including pressure vessels, air compressors and heat exchangers that local subcontractors developed and manufactured.

DHIC also completed the development of ‘low-temperature cast and forged materials for offshore plants’ in 2012 and has been striving to secure technology for the ‘localization of high efficiency large-sized gas turbines’.

Kim Sook-hyun, COO of HHI’s Offshore & Engineering Division, said: “With most of the major equipment and materials imported from abroad, our localization initiative will drive our competitiveness forward in the offshore plant business. We are also enhancing our efforts to help local partner companies localize more items under the alliance with Center for Creative Economy & Innovation In Ulsan and Gyeongnam.”