South Korea's Daewoo says will deliver two more Yamal LNG tankers in 2017

SEOUL/MOSCOW: South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding expects to deliver two more ice-class tankers to lift liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia's Yamal LNG project this year, a company spokesman said on Monday.

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), which has the world's largest volume of existing orders among shipyards, has got an order to build a total of 15 ice-class tankers for the Yamal LNG project.

The first tanker, named after Christophe de Margerie, the former chief executive of French oil company Total who died in an aircraft crash at a Moscow airport in 2014, made a test docking at the Sabetta port in Yamal last week.

A spokesman for Daewoo Shipbuilding said on Monday that the remaining 14 LNG tankers for Yamal are all due to be delivered by 2020, including two to be delivered this year.

The Yamal LNG project, which is scheduled to start production in October, is co-owned by local Russian gas producer Novatek, Total, China's CNPC and the Silk Road Fund.

The Yamal plant is expected to produce a total of 16.5 million tonnes of LNG a year at three production trains, with 5.5 million tonnes capacity each. LNG will be shipped to Asia from July to December and can be delivered to Europe year-round.

Already bailed out in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and supported again in 2015, Daewoo Shipbuilding posted a record net loss of 3.3 trillion won ($3 billion)in 2015 and remained in the red in 2016.

South Korean state banks have said they are preparing a fresh $2.6 billion bailout for the company, which has racked up huge losses from offshore projects and risks missing debt repayments this year.

Concerning Daewoo's current liquidity situation, a company spokesman said, "an infusion of funds by the South Korean government and state-run banks are a given, so additional liquidity trouble is not expected."