- Samsung Heavy Industries proves its technological excellence by completing the design, production, installation, and test operation of the rig with its own technology
- The rig will be operated at Tupi Field, Brazil, for five years

Samsung Heavy Industries has announced that on March 15 of 2009, using its own technology, it completed the building of West Eminance, the world’s largest semi-submersible drilling rig, which has a capacity of 30,000 tons. The Company successfully delivered West Eminance to Seadrill in Norway.

West Eminance is an ultra-large drilling rig with a height of 112M, an available area of 8925㎡, and 935Km of wiring and piping, a distance exceeding a trip from Seoul to Busan and back. 300 workers were involved in building West Eminance, over a period of two and a half years.

The USD 510 million contract to build West Eminance was concluded in 2005. The key features of West Eminance include the capacity to drill up to 12,000M deep, the inclusion of two drilling towers to improve production capacity by 30 percent, an advanced navigation system that will function in storms and tidal waves, the ability to operate the rig in any conditions, including temperatures as low as -20 degrees, and compliance with the world’s strictest DNV standards for stability and the prevention of marine pollution.

In the past, most of the drilling rigs built in Korea were made in cooperation with European shipbuilders. Domestic shipbuilders have mostly built only the lower parts of the rigs, with the upper parts being built by European shipbuilders. However, for this rig Samsung Heavy Industries completed the entire shipbuilding process, from design to procurement, building, installation, and test operation, with its own technology, proving its technological excellence in the field of marine equipment.

Departing from Geoje Shipyard on March 15, West Eminance will arrive at Tupi Field, in the Atlantic Ocean near Brazil, where there is an oil reserve that is believed to amount to 8 billion barrels of oil. It is expected that the rig will be used there for the next five years.

With Brazil, a country that has a total of 50 billion barrels of oil in its vast deep sea oil fields spanning 160,000 km2, announcing its intention to undertake the full-fledged development of the oil fields by investing approximately USD 840 billion by 2012, Samsung Heavy Industries will take a favorable position in early occupation of Brazil’s drilling rig market by successfully delivering West Eminance to Brazil.

According to Petradata and Infield, the UK market analysis magazines, orders for ships have slowed down due to the global economic slowdown, but the large oil companies with their robust investment power are expected to place orders for about 30 drilling rigs and production ships in 2009, promising stable growth for the marine structure sector.

Vice Chairman Kim Jing-wan of Samsung Heavy Industries said, "In 2008, the marine structure segment accounted for more than 70 percent of the USD 15.3 billion orders we received. Samsung Heavy Industries aims to overcome the current crisis by stimulating drill ships and LNG-FPSO, which are less influenced by economic slowdowns, as our main products."