SEOUL-- South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Tuesday it has clinched a 1.07 trillion-won (US$850 million) order to build four liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers under a deal with a South Korean consortium.
DSME, the world's No. 4 shipbuilder by order backlog, said it will build the 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers in the Okpo shipyard on the south coast and deliver them by the first half of 2025.
The South Korean consortium, which is composed of Pan Ocean Co., SK Shipping Co. and H-Line Shipping Co., will deliver LNG for Qatar Energy, Qatar's state-owned oil and gas company that was previously called Qatar Petroleum, according to a DSME official.
The order is the first result of a $19 billion contract that DSME and two other Korean shipbuilding giants -- Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Samsung Heavy Industries Co. -- signed with Qatar Petroleum in June 2020 to construct more than 100 LNG vessels through 2027.
The preliminary pact, an arrangement that precedes a major shipbuilding order, allows the Qatari company to secure so-called construction slots from the South Korean shipyards.
The contract is in line with Qatar's plan to boost its LNG production capacity to 126 million tons by 2027 from the current 77 million tons. Qatar is the world's top LNG producer.
DSME's order is widely expected to lead to the securing of more orders for LNG carriers by the three major shipbuilders for the Qatari project down the road.
Earlier in 2004-07, DSME successfully delivered 26 LNG carriers out of an order for 53 vessels placed by Qatar. DSME has an annual capacity of building around 20 LNG ships.
DSME has bagged orders worth $5.47 billion to build 16 LNG carriers, six container ships and one offshore plant so far this year, already achieving 61.5 percent of the yearly order target of $8.9 billion.
In a regulatory filing, Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) said it has won a 537.5 billion-won order to build two 174,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers for an undisclosed European shipping company.
KSOE said Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., a KSOE affiliate, will build the vessels at its shipyard in the southeastern port of Ulsan and deliver them by the first half of 2025.
KSOE did not disclose whether the order is related to the Qatari LNG project, but industry sources said it is surely part of the megadeal.
With the latest order, KSOE has achieved 69.8 percent of its yearly order target of $17.44 billion. KSOE, the subholding company of global shipbuilding titan Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, has three shipbuilding affiliates -- Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co.
Source: Yonhap News Agency