The Biggest
Single Project
Order

Hyundai Heavy Industries clinches $1.6 billion order for offshore platforms in UAE

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. announced on September 26th that it has clinched the largest single offshore platform construction order in the world from the United Arab Emirates totaling $1.6 billion.
Company officials said HHI signed the letter of award with Adma-Opco, a subsidiary of ADNOC, the state oil company. The project involves the construction of three 40,000 ton fixed platforms and undersea pipelines and a bridge capable of producing 300,000 barrels of crude oil and 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, to be completed by 2010 in Umm Shalf oil field off the coast of Abu Dabi.
HHI first submitted its tender in August 2005, but had to compete against a number of rivals including NPCC, a local contractor, and a French consortium and won the project on the basis of an exclusive contract covering all phases of the project including purchase, production, installation, and test-run operations.
UAE is the fourth largest oil producer in OPEC and the project that HHI won this time is the largest single project order in history and also the first one given to a foreign construction firm by UAE. The project is considered a milestone in Korean builders'advancement into the marine installation projects in the Middle East bulging with oil dollars due to high oil prices.
Hyundai Heavy officials said the order is recognition of their company's technology accumulation in marine installation projects and considered to have occupied a bridgehead for large marine installation projects to come from the oil-rich region.
The new order made the company to fulfill its order target for this year already by bringing order total to $10.8 billion in areas of shipbuilding, plant and marine installation in excess of the $10.7 which was the target goal. The company expects its total overseas project orders will exceed its target as several billion dollars worth of additional projects are being negotiated.
Hyundai Heavy Industries completed and sailed out to install an offshore gas platform, part of Korea's first overseas oil development project called Vietnam Doi Project. An embarking ceremony took place on August 16th in the presence of Lee Yong-hae, president of Offshore Engineering Division of HhI and Seo Moon-kyu, vice president of Korea National Oil Corp.(KNOC) and 100 other guests at Ulsan, Korea, where HHI's dry docks are located.
The gas production platform weights 6,000 tons and will be installed at 11-2 Rong Doi gas field in Nam Con Son, situated 320 km off of Vietnam's south coast. The installation of the gas development platform will be completed in November and will produce an average of 10 million cubic feet of natural gas and 6,000 barrels of crude oil.
The Vietnam Rong Doi Project is significant in that it is Korea's first overseas oil development with a platform developed by HHI's own technology. The project, worth $160 million, involves the erection of a 17,400 ton fixed natural gas condensate extraction facility that includes gas production platform, production utility platform and 58 km of undersea pipelines.
The main equipment of the project is supplied by KNOC while the design, production, installation and trial run are overseen by HHI.
In the meantime, the company recently signed a contract with a Spanish company for 50,000 units of 200W class solar photovoltaic modules worth $50 million, the largest order of such kind reached by a Korean company. The modules will be used in the first phase of 10MW class project for the world's largest, 21MW class solar park in Spain. HHI is also preparing to secure the second phase project of this park.
"Through this order, we have accelerated our entry in Europe, the world's largest solar photovoltaic market. We are also in talks with German and Italian companies for additional export,"HHI spokesman said.
Solar photovoltaic power generation converts solar light to electricity directly with solar cells. Infinite energy is the major advantage of the solar photovoltaic power generation since it has no fuel cost, air pollution, vibration and no noise. nw

A marine platform built by Hyundai Heavy Industries.