Although Korean shipbuilding and offshore plant builders are suffering from lower orders from overseas customers, state-owned Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC)'s subsidiary turns out to have placed an order for one Floating Production Storage and Offloading unit at Chinese company.
Some indicate problems that it goes opposite from the government's policy to promote domestic offshore plant industry.
KNOC's affiliated company Dana Petroleum of the UK awarded an order for circular FPSO at China's COSCO Shipyard Group, sources announced on October 12.
The FPSO values around $400m, with storage capacity of 400,000 barrels.
KNOC explained that it selected COSCO since no domestic builders have experiences in building circular FPSO. But one domestic shipyard is now under construction of circular floating unit, which is capable of storing 1,000,000 barrels of oil.
A minister from the Knowledge Economy Committee blamed that "There has been no political consideration" and emphasized that the government should pay attention to investments from affiliated state-owned companies as well to promote domestic industries, in order to hold back Chinese' rush.