By Choi Sung-jin
Korea’s big-three shipyards, which have struggled this year, are pinning their hopes on winning orders for LNG carriers and natural gas-fueled ships next year, industry sources said Monday.
This is because the dearth of orders for merchant ships and offshore plants is expected to continue through 2016 while demand for LNG transport and ships propelled by environment-friendly gas-fueled engines are likely to surge. “The shipbuilders’ business next year will hinge on how many LNG ship orders they can secure,” an analyst said.
During the first half of next year, there would be orders for LNG carriers worth at least 3 trillion won ($2.56 billion), the sources said.
SK E&S, for example, has selected Hyundai Heavy Industries as preferred bidder for two or three LNG carriers it will formally award early next year. The exact number of vessels and the amount of the contract have yet to be fixed, but industry watchers estimate the deal to be between 450 billion won and 700 billion won.
India’s state-run gas company plans to order nine LNG tankers, worth about $1.8 billion. If international economic sanctions on Iran are lifted early next year, the world’s second-largest natural gas producer is highly likely to place orders for LNG carriers. In addition, the United States will need 19 very large gas tankers, worth at least 4 trillion won, to export about 15 million tons of shale gas produced in Louisiana, the sources said.
The three large shipbuilders are focusing on how to reduce losses during transportation and developing gas-fueled vessels at prices similar to the existing carriers.
Hyundai Heavy is bent on enhancing the efficiency of dual-fueled vessels that can burn both diesel oil and natural gas, while Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering are trying to graft gas-fueled engines to other vessels, including very large container carriers, officials at these companies said.