Hyundai Heavy Industries announced Sunday that it would build the world’s first floating storage and re-gasification unit for liquefied natural gas.

A floating storage and re-gasification unit or FSRU is a vessel for storing liquefied natural gas at sea. It is connected to facilities on land by pipelines, through which re-gasified LNG is transferred.

According to the company, it was awarded a $500 million contract for two LNG-FSRUs from the Norway-based LNG supplier Hoegh LNG.

The contract includes options for two additional LNG-FSRUs, the shipbuilder said.

The two LNG-FSRUs, the first of which will be delivered to Hoegh LNG in the second half of 2013, will be able to store 70,000 metric tons of LNG, the company said.

The second vessel will be delivered during the first half of 2014.

The shipbuilder added that a new design would be applied allowing the vessels to stay at sea for up to 10 years without maintenance. According to the company similar vessels in operation at present need to be docked for up to three months every five years for maintenance.

“The contract will be an opportunity for spreading the trend of building LNG supply facilities at sea,” Hyundai Heavy Industries said in a statement.

“The outlook for winning additional contracts is also very good as about 10 projects are under way in Brazil, Indonesia and other locations.”

According to the company, an LNG-FSRU is about one year quicker to build than land-based LNG storage and supply bases. In addition, the cost of building an LNG-FSRU is about half that of onshore facilities.

As such, the interest in such vessels from Latin American and Southeast Asian nations has been increasing rapidly in recent years as their energy requirements rise, the company said.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)