Korea Shipbuilding bags W659b order for US offshore plant

Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering signed a 659.2 billion won ($577 million) deal to build an offshore plant for an American oil company, the South Korean shipbuilder said Friday.

In a regulatory filing, KSOE said it would undertake the first phase of construction for an offshore crude oil storage facility under the deal. The company declined to reveal the client.

The envisioned semi-submersible floating production storage platform is to measure 91 meters in length, 91 meters in width and 90 meters in height, and will be able to produce around 100,000 barrels of crude oil and 4 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.

Under the engineering, procurement and construction contract, it will take about a year for Hyundai Heavy Industries to design the facility. Then, in the third quarter 2021, it will start building it at its Ulsan shipyard, KSOE said. The facility will be moved to the Shenandoah deep-water oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, about 300 kilometers south of the US state of Louisiana, in 2024 and will be completed there.

KSOE is a sub-holding company in charge of Hyundai Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding and offshore business.

The Korean shipbuilder said it had previously built and delivered a floating production storage platform for Murphy Oil Corporation, and that the successful project had enabled it to win this recent order.

“As the price of oil is rising, we expect to see constant orders for offshore construction to be made from the Americas and from countries such as Qatar,” a KSOE official said.

The Korean shipbuilder said it had bagged deals worth a total of $17.4 billion as of this month, surpassing this year’s goal of $14.9 billion.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)