Chinese government is said to provide a great financial support for domestic shipbuilders to enter into a lucrative offshore drilling rig market.
Industry players said that Chinese government provides attractive ship finances to foreign shipowner with its enormous foreign exchange reserves. An official at an investment consultant said, “Several Chinese shipbuilders negotiate with shipowners suggesting a surprisingly attractive tail-heavy payment terms (up to 1%/99%).” “It actually attracts customers because the terms ;ower their financial burden.”

Although Korean shipbuilders are currently dominating the deep-sea drillship market with high technology skills where newbuilding prices cost up to $500m~600m apiece, Chinese shipbuilders greatly lower proportion of advanced payment, giving them ever much pressure.

Particularly, Chinese shipbuilders have recently won jack-up drilling rigs in succession, which demand relatively low level of technical skill.

Analysts advise that Korean shipbuilders should even work harder to differentiate themselves from Chinese builders in such as technical superiority, etc.