South Korean shipbuilders are looking to further cement their lead in the new promising potential market of offshore liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facilities, industry sources said Thursday.

The FLNG facilities are floating plants that liquefy and store natural gas drawn from offshore gas fields and enable carriers to transfer the LNG to shore.

According to the sources, demand for such plants is very high because of relatively low costs in developing offshore gas fields and less concern about destroying the seabed ecosystem.

South Korean shipbuilders have fared the best so far among global rivals in the FLNG markets.

Last week, Samsung Heavy Industries Co. obtained a 1.56 trillion won (US$1.5 billion) order for FLNG facilities with Malaysia's state-run oil company Petronas.

In 2012, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. won an order for FLNG facilities that can produce an annual 1.2 million tons of LNG, also awarded by Petronas.

Samsung Heavy Industries earned a FLNG facility order from Royal Dutch Shell plc., an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company, in 2011.

As of February, 13 FLNG facilities projects are underway throughout the world and another 19 in the planning stage. Bids for four are expected within this year, including contracts for two FLNG facility projects by Israel and Indonesia in the first half of the year. The other two projects are pushed by GDF Suez S.A., a French multinational electric utility company, and Exxon Mobil, a U.S. oil company, according to the sources.

Douglas Westwood Ltd., a British energy and marine market researcher, said in a recent report that the global FLNG projects are expected to reach $65 billion over the next six years.