18-04-01 Boosted by recent successes, South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries said it expected to rake in $ 2.5 bn worth of orders for offshore projects this year, up sharply from $ 1 bn worth in 2000. The target looked within reach after Hyundai completed the world's largest FPSO (floating, production, storage and offloading) vessel for the French firm Mar Profundo Girassol, a senior executive said.
"The success has impressed global oil majors strongly," said Uh Sung-joon, a senior executive vice president at the world's largest shipbuilder. "Major oil companies like ExxonMobil and Shell Group are now very, very interested in working together with us."
He said high oil prices had also helped trigger oil and gas exploration in deeper and untapped seabeds, brightening the earnings prospects for his company. "If the current trend holds, we will be able to receive some $ 5 bn worth of orders in 2010 and grow into the world's largest builder for offshore facilities," Uh said.

Uh, in charge of Hyundai's offshore and engineering division, said his company was confident of winning a $ 420 mm order from Shell Group in April to build offshore facilities in Iran. "We also have the best chance to win a $ 380 mm order this month to construct a floating production unit (FPO) with a tension leg platform (TLP) in Indonesia," he said.
The executive said his company was confident of getting an $ 850 mm order from ExxonMobil in a tender scheduled for June or July to build an FPSO vessel destined for Angola.
Hyundai Heavy's orders for offshore projects during the first quarter of this year totalled $ 635 mm, including a $ 200 mm order from Denmark's Maersk Contractors, an affiliate of A.P. Moeller Group, to build an ultra-large drilling rig in the North Sea.

In 1999, Hyundai Heavy beat out global players such as McDermott of the United States and Aker of Norway to win the Girassol FPSO vessel order. Hyundai Heavy was the subcontractor to Girassol, which had been awarded the contract from a consortium of global oil majors, including TotalFinaElf, Exxon and BP.
In building the Girassol FPSO facilities, Hyundai adopted a new method of assembling parts on the yard floor, instead of in a dry dock, resulting in tremendous cost savings. By using its "Super-Lifting" techniques, which can place the ultra-heavy topside section on the lower part of a drilling rig for mating and welding, Hyundai made it possible to finish most of the construction on the ground.
"The new method was a technical breakthrough that helped cut manufacturing costs significantly," Uh said. "The success has boosted our reputation so greatly as to allow us to work for oil majors as a main contractor."
The Girassol FPSO facilities, worth $ 300 mm, sailed off Hyundai's Ulsan plant in March and would be put into service in oil fields of Angola later this year. Hyundai officials said the market for offshore projects was currently estimated at $ 30 bn a year and was expected to increase to $ 50 bn by 2010.

Hyundai Heavy has completedabout 90 projects for offshore gas and oil production facilities since it started the business in 1976 by building an open sea tanker terminal in Jubail industrial harbour of Saudi Arabia.