South Korea’s financially-troubled Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) announced on Wednesday that it has successfully delivered a drill ship ordered by U.S.-based Transocean in 2013.

The down payment of the project of the drill ship was about 600 billion won ($536 million). The shipbuilder would get 150 billion won for the delivery in a relief to its liquidity woes.

With the latest, the shipbuilder has delivered four of nine drill ships, which are scheduled to be delivered within this year, to ship owners and is expected to deliver the remaining five by the end of this year.

Among the five ships, two were ordered by Angolan state oil firm Sonangol EP. The construction of the ships was completed but the delivery has been delayed due to financial trouble of the Angolan company. The construction of the remaining three has gone smoothly as scheduled.

The latest drill ship delivered is a DSME-12000 type developed by DSME and the largest the company has built for deep-sea drilling. The ship could drill for oil in the sea as deep as 3.6 kilometers.

Transocean, the world’s largest drill ship owner, signed the first contract with DSME in 2006 and, since then, placed orders for 12 drill ships in total with the shipbuilder. Including the latest drill ship, DSME has successfully delivered 10 drill ships to Transocean and has been constructing two more.

Source: Pulse