Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction-Philippines (HHIC-Phil), the country's largest shipbuilder, announced that it will undergo a USD1 billion program designed to accomodate shipbuilding offers that may come from the Malampaya exploration activities, Positive News Media Philippines reports.

It said it has already reserved an additional 150 hectares of land to expand its Subic shipyard facility as part of its USD1 billion expansion activity.

Under the expansion plan, 100 hectares — falling under the shipyard development’s Phase 1-2 — will be dedicated for dry-dock 6 while the remaining 50 hectares will be for fabrication of materials for the Malampaya platform.

From now until 2015, HHIP has 31 new buildings for delivery. At the end of the month, it will deliver its 24th ship, bulk carrier MV Houheng II to Heugh Industries of Hong Kong.

As this developed, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority administrator Armand Arreza said HHIP’s Cagayan De Oro plant (Southern Philippines) is on hold and that the company will instead focus on its Subic yard while waiting for results of its engineering, procurement and construction bid for Phase 2 of the Malampaya natural gas project.

“Even before the Malampaya II project, HHIP already expressed their intention to expand their yard in Subic,” Arreza stressed.

“However, with the Malampaya project, we now expect that the expansion would be accelerated and result in big investments for SBMA. HHIP is also looking at setting up all other support industries for the platform project to be housed in Subic.”



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