Brazil's OSX aims to build $2 bil in rigs, tankers for Petrobras

OSX Brasil SA, which is building a shipyard in Brazil with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industry Co., said that it plans to bid for oil drilling rig and tanker contracts worth $2 billion that Brazil's state-led Petrobras wants to build. OSX, which already plans to build 48 ships and platforms for sister-company OGX Petroleo e Gas, Brazil's second-largest oil exploration group, plans to have spare capacity to build vessels for third parties when its $1.7 billion yard starts cutting its first steel in 2012, OSX CFO Roberto Monteiro told journalists at the Rio Oil & Gas 2010 conference in Rio de Janeiro.
"We do not just plan to build ships for OGX, we have the room to expand and the technology to do assembly-line shipbuilding," Monteiro said. "We expect to become the biggest shipbuilder in Brazil." Both OSX and OGX are controlled by the Rio de Janeiro's EBX energy, mining and transportation group.
Hyundai owns 10% of the OSX shipyard project, which will be built at EBX's port of Acu in Rio de Janeiro or near Florianopolis, Brazil, in the state of Santa Catarina. A decision on the site is expected by the end of the year, with construction of the shipyard starting in early 2011. The yard expects to deliver its first self-built vessel -- a floating production, storage and offloading vessel -- in late 2013 or early 2014.  It is building two other FPSOs in Singapore and seeking bids in Brazil for two wellhead fixed platforms from other yards for delivery in 2011 and 2012, Monteiro said. It also is seeking to build two deepwater drill rigs for Petrobras and up to four products tankers for a Petrobras-backed project known as Cia. Brazileira de Navegecao.
Under Brazilian law, most of the value of the equipment used in exploration and production of offshore blocks must be made or added in Brazil. The Brazilian oil industry expects to place orders for more than 400 ships, including platforms, drill-rigs and support vessels over the next decade, and these will have to be built at least partly in Brazil to meet the local content rules.