Battle of the giants

South Korea’s big three shipbuilders, namely Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo, are competing for the massive LNG-FPSO order to be placed by Royal Dutch Shell. The front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the vessel will be awarded no later than July and the shipbuilder who will win the contract will also be highly likely to win the final order.

The $5bn project’s manufacturing cost amounts to $2bn to $3bn and the final order is expected to be placed at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year. Samsung is arguably the world’s best in the LNG-FPSO construction sector since it has developed the world?s first LNG-FPSO by developing its own technology and all of the five orders for this type of vessel have been awarded to the shipbuilder.

Hyundai recently completed the world’s first and largest FPSO-dedicated dock called ?H Dock’ in early April. However, it is likely that the shipbuilder who offers the lowest price will finally secure the mega order.

Separately, other massive offshore sector newbuilding projects are expected to begin in earnest later this month or in June with Petrobras’ offshore plant and drillship, Gorgon Project’s LNG carrier and Russia’s ice-class tanker and offshore plant reportedly being expected to be placed within the first half.