South Korea shipbuilder Hyundai wins $2 bn French order

Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's largest shipbuilder, said Tuesday it had won a $2.0 billion order to build two offshore platforms for French energy giant Total. Under the deal with Total's Congo unit, the South Korean company will build and deliver by early 2016 a drilling platform and a floating oil and gas production platform, Hyundai said in a statement. The two platforms will operate at Moho Nord field 80 kilometres (50 miles) off the southwestern coast of Congo, Hyundai said, adding the field is believed to have a crude oil reserve of about three billion barrels. The oil and gas production platform can produce 100,000 barrels of oil and 2.5 million cubic square of natural gas a day, it said. The world's top shipbuilder said it aimed to win orders worth $6.0 billion for offshore platforms in 2013 and has won $3.2 billion in such orders so far this year.