British ambassador amongst visitors to view largest sea platform
Warwick Morris tours Samsung shipyard and gets view of PILTUN-B

Warwick Morris, the British ambassador to Korea, Hans Heinsbroek, the Netherlands ambassador to Korea, and Charge dAffaires Alexander Timonin of Russia in Korea visited Samsung Heavy Industry’s (SHI) Geoje shipyard to see Piltun-B, the worlds largest crude oil and gas production platform, which the Korean shipbuilder had just completed.

On April 12, SHI hosted the ambassadors of these three countries that had invested in the development of the sea oil field of Sakhalin, as well as representatives of SEIC which had ordered the platform’s construction, to show them Piltun-B.

It is the first time that the Korean shipbuilder has revealed the platform to the public, as previously it had only shown it to the company that ordered it. It is also the first time that these ambassadors had visited the Geoje shipyard.

PiltunㅡB is 95 meters wide, 130 meters long and 120 meters high, and is equal in size to a 40ㅡstory building. Its 33,000 ton weight is equal to 25,000 mediumㅡsized cars. The platform will be installed 16 kilometres northwest of Sakhalin, and is expected to harvest 2.6 million ㎥ of natural gas and 70,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

SEIC, which ordered this platform to be built by SHI, and is in charge of the energy development project at the northeast area of Sakhalin, is a company jointly established by the Russian state-owned gas company Gasprom, and Mitsui and Mitsubishi of Japan. The representatives of SEIC and the three ambassadors made a five-hour tour to the Geoje shipyard and the interior of Piltun-B.

During the tour, the ambassadors were said to be greatly impressed at the size of the platform, which was double the size of a single soccer field, said Samsung.