Beijing, China, 1 April – The Chinese Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry (Zhenhua) shipyards are building undersea drilling equipment for Brazilian oil company ETX, which will be sold by Arborec Desarrollos HK Limited (ADHK), the company said in a statement.

“Zhenhua Heavy Industry signed a contract with ADHK to supply undersea drilling towers and we will provide technical support wherever those towers are being used,” a Zhenhua official said in the statement.

ADHK is a subsidiary of Spain’s ADSA in Hong Kong, according to Spanish news agency EFE, and the equipment consists of 5 towers for undersea drilling for gas and oil estimated to cost US$1 billion.

The equipment that ADHK sells to ETC were funded with part of the uS$2.2 billion credit granted to the Chinese shipyard last year by the China Development Bank.

The loan was for construction of 10 mobile oil rigs for undersea drilling and another seven for drilling on land which are due to be supplied to ADSA before 30 July, 2012.

Zhenhua, whose container crane business accounts for 78 percent of the sector, began in May 2009 to build undersea drilling equipment after the loan was granted. (macauhub)