South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has refuted media reports that it plans to sell its wind energy businesses in Europe.
Rumours that South Korea’s second biggest shipbuilder would sell those businesses, which include an offshore wind turbine test centre in Fife, Scotland, grew after SHI, like its compatriot peers Hyundai HI and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, failed to produce satisfactory results from diversifying into wind power in the late 2000s.
The collapse in oil prices has further hurt demand for wind power.
In a Korea Exchange filing on 6 July, SHI said that while it was in talks to sell the centre in Fife, a complete withdrawal from the wind energy sector was not on the cards.
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SHI said, “The withdrawal of some projects is expected due to the drop in demand for energy generated from offshore projects. But we do not plan a complete retreat from the wind energy sector.”
SHI has installed 2.5MW-class onshore wind power generators on Yeongheung, an island off Incheon, as well as in Canada and the United States.
A prototype of a 7MW wind turbine is installed in the Fife centre.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
