South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) has started construction of what will be the world's largest floating dock.

    It will be 85.6 m wide, 432 m long and 130,000 DWT and will be deployed at DSME's Okpo Shipyard.

    DSME says the dock will make it "relatively easy and efficient to build an 18,000 TEU containership and any other large vessels up to 68 m in width."

    The No.5 Royal Dock is being built to meet DSME's need for bigger production facilities as a result of increasing number of new orders for offshore projects such as FPSOs and LNG-FPSOs.

    The giant floating dock is being built at Daehan Shipbuilding (DS) in the South Korean province of South Jeolla. DS has been managed by DSME since last June.

    The No.5 Royal Dock will be delivered to the Okpo shipyard in December 2012, and will be used to construct three LNG carriers starting in February 2013.

(source:asiasis)