South Korea’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries slated to temporarily close down the offshore shipyard after it completes the last delivery this week has put a site that used to manufacture offshore modules up for sale in additional cost-saving efforts.

According to multiple industry sources from the shipbuilding industry on Sunday, Hyundai Heavy Industries recently held a board of directors meeting and decided to sell idle yards including that of the Onsan factory, which in its heyday employed 1,000 workers, to back offshore facility order.

Hyundai Heavy Industries opened an additional 200,000 square meter Onsan plant in 2011 due to surge in offshore demand. The dock is located about 10 kilometers away from the main offshore yard in Bangeo-dong in Ulsan’s Dong District. The site has been idle since November 2016 after new offshore orders stopped coming.

The main offshore dockyard will become mostly closed, reserving limited space and work force to share the non-offshore backlog, after the shipbuilder delivers the last offshore order to the United Arab Emirates this month. The offshore operation that employs 2,000 will likely keep minimum 600 and ask others to go on rotational leave.

By Woo Je-woon and Lee Eun-joo

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