Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. has completed the world's first dock for floating production storage and offloading units, the demand for which is expected to grow in line with a global boom in offshore oil and gas development, the company said yesterday.
The H Dock, equipped with two 1,600-ton cranes, was built in the southern port city of Ulsan, with an investment of 140 billion won. It is Hyundai Heavy's 10th dock.
Hyundai Heavy, the world's No. 1 shipbuilder, plans to start in June work at the dock, building USAN FPSO, ordered by EPNL, a unit of France's Total, at a price of $1.6 billion.
The for-FPSO dock, seven times the size of a soccer field, would shorten the construction duration by one month to four and a half months and reduce the production cost by 15 percent, the company said.
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It can also be used to make regular ships and four 180,000-ton vessels at the same time.
"The H Dock is the fruit of Hyundai Heavy's know-how in shipbuilding of the past 37 years," Oh Byung-wook, head of the company's offshore business division.
"With the dock, the company will be able to sharpen its competitiveness in the market for FPSOs and LNG-FPSOs," he said.
The Korean firm has clinched seven out of 11 orders placed so far for large-sized FPSOs - those with a storage capacity of more than 2 million barrels of oil.
By Lee Sun-young
(milaya@heraldm.com)
